REESE   LIBRARY 

Of   THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Received      IVIAR  20  1894'  :  i8g 


Accessions  No 


.4^7^. 


Uass  jyo. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL 


BY 


CHARLES    CARROLL    EVERETT 

PROFESSOR    OF    THEOLOGY    IN    HARVARI)    UNIVERSITY 
AND  DEAN  OF  THE  HARVARD  DIVINITY  SCHOOL 


"  Though  we,  or  an  angel  from,  heaven,  should 
preach  unto  you  any  gospel  other  than  that  which 
we  preached  unto  you,  let  hifn  be  anathema^ 


BOSTON    AND    NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 

1893 


P€  LIBR4; 
UNIVEBSIDY 


3  s  a^C^SiT 


Copyri^t,  1893, 
By  CHARLES  CARROLL  EVERETT. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Company. 


PREFACE. 


In  the  following  pages  I  present  an  interpreta- 
tion of  Paul's  doctrine  of  the  atonement  which  I 
believe  to  be  new.  Others,  indeed,  have  had  in 
their  hands  the  clue  that  I  have  followed  ;  but 
they  have  speedily  dropped  it  as  of  small  ac- 
count. When  I  speak  of  an  interpretation  of 
Paul's  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  I  do  not  mean 
a  theory  of  my  own  of  a  possible  scheme  of 
atonement,  to  which  some  of  Paul's  words  may 
be  made  to  fit  more  or  less  loosely.  I  mean  a 
statement  which  has  nothing  in  it  of  my  own, 
but  which  is  based  wholly  upon  an  examination 
of  the  words  of  Paul ;  these  being  taken  in  their 
most  natural  and  direct  signification. 

I  know  that  the  announcement  of  the  result 
of  such  an  examination  as  "  new  "  will  excite  in 
most  the  presumption  of  its  worthlessness.  Such 
a  presumption  is  natural  and  unavoidable.  If, 
however,  in  spite  of  this  presumption,  any  will 


IV  PREFACE. 

take  the  trouble  to  follow  carefully  the  discus- 
sion, I  can  promise  them  a  result,  which,  if  not 
true,  is  at  least  interesting.  The  element  of 
interest  will  be  found  in  this,  that  here  is  an 
interpretation  of  Paul's  words  which  differs  so 
radically  from  the  one  commonly  received  that 
it  might  be  called  revolutionary,  and  which,  if 
not  true,  yet  fits  the  words  of  Paul  more  per- 
fectly than  that  which  is  assumed  to  be  true. 
For  myself  I  have  been  delighted  and  surprised 
to  see  how  one  passage  after  another,  that  had 
not  been  thought  of  in  the  beginning,  has  yielded 
a  precise  and  literal  sense  when  brought  into  re- 
lation with  the  general  view  of  Paul's  teaching 
here  presented.  I  know  that  to  some  this  literal- 
ness  and  definiteness  may  seem  petty,  and  the 
results  reached  may  seem  unromantic,  compared 
with  the  generous  freedom  with  which  these 
words  are  often  handled,  and  the  sublime  and 
mysterious  significance  which  has  been  attached 
to  them.  Such  pettiness,  however,  is  the  only 
way  by  which  the  real  meaning  of  a  writer  like 
Paul  can  be  reached  ;  and  I  think  that  the  result 
arrived  at  will  be  seen  to  involve  ideas  which,  to 
a  man  like  Paul,  situated  as  he  was,  were  natural 
if  not  inevitable. 


PREFACE.  V 

It  has  seemed  to  me  that  one  great  obstacle 
which  will  stand  in  the  way  of  the  acceptance  of 
the  view  of  Paul's  teaching  here  presented  will 
arise  from  the  association  of  Paul's  form  of 
speech  with  ideas  that  have  long  prevailed  in  the 
church,  especially  with  the  notion  that  Christ 
in  his  death  bore  vicariously  the  penalty  of  the 
world's  sin.  I  have,  accordingly,  judged  it  best, 
before  presenting  my  own  view,  to  attempt  to 
remove  these  associations.  The  substitutionary 
view  has  rested  partly  upon  a  theory  of  ancient 
sacrifice  which  I  believe  to  be  erroneous,  and 
which,  indeed,  is  fast  tending  to  become  obsolete. 
For  this  reason  I  have  presented  in  the  first 
chapter  some  consideration  of  the  nature  of 
sacrifice.  The  substitutionary  view  has  rested 
also,  to  a  large  degree,  upon  the  assumed  au- 
thority of  the  ancient  church.  It  therefore 
seemed  best  to  show  in  the  next  chapter  that 
the  history  of  the  doctrine  does  not  furnish  a 
presumption  of  its  Pauline  origin,  but  tends  to 
make  this  improbable.  After  this,  in  the  third 
chapter,  it  is  attempted  to  show,  by  a  few  illus- 
trations, that  this  doctrine,  in  fact,  cannot  be 
reconciled  with  Paul's  language.  After  this  pre- 
paration, what  I  conceive  to  be  the  true  interpre- 


Vi  PREFACE. 

tation  of  Paul's  teaching  is  stated  and  defended. 
This  is  followed  by  a  brief  glance  at  the  relation 
of  this  view  of  Paul's  theory  of  the  atonement  to 
the  rest  of  his  teaching.  It  will  be  found  to 
throw  much  light  upon  this,  especially  upon  his 
doctrine  of  election. 

I  have  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  consider 
at  great  length  the  Socinian  and  other  rationahs- 
tic  interpretations  of  Paul's  words.  Such  ration- 
alizing has  become  of  late  very  common.  It  has 
arisen  from  the  fact  that  the  substitutionary 
view  has  seemed  contrary  to  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  justice,  and  therefore,  it  has  been  as- 
sumed, could  not  have  been  taught  by  Paul.  For 
this  reason  there  has  been  a  widespread  effort 
of  late  to  interpret  Paul  in  accordance  with  the 
moral  sense  of  the  present  time.  The  results 
have  been,  unhappily,  for  the  most  part  very 
vague,  and  neither  very  Pauline  nor  very  ra- 
tional. The  reason  why  I  have  not  devoted  more 
time  to  these  attempts  is  that  they  have  not  as 
yet  established  such  associations  with  Paul's 
words  as  greatly  to  affect  the  reader.  At  the 
same  time,  the  habit  of  taking  Paul's  expressions 
loosely,  the  notion  that  he  could  not  have  meant 
anything  very  special  even  by  his  most  pointed 


PREFACE,  Vll 

utterances,  will,  I  fear,  more  than  anything  else 
stand  in  the  way  of  a  serious  attempt  to  reach 
his  actual  thought. 

The  view  here  presented,  which  I  believe  to  be 
Pauline,  and  which,  while  it  is  remote  from  our 
habits  of  thought,  does  not  contradict  our  moral 
sense,  may,  I  hope,  do  something  to  reconcile 
the  New  Testament  and  the  conscience  of  the 
Christian  world.  This  examination  of  Paul's 
thought  was  not,  however,  undertaken  or  carried 
on  with  any  such  object.  I  may  say  that  it  was 
not  undertaken  at  all  in  the  sense  that  I  deliber- 
ately went  to  work  to  find  out  what  Paul  meant. 
The  interpretation  here  presented  forced  itself 
upon  me  when  I  first  began  the  serious  reading 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  all  my  subsequent 
study  has  confirmed  its  truth. 

I  have  considered  it  a  piece  of  rare  good  for- 
tune that  so  many  important  works  bearing  more 
or  less  directly  upon  the  theme  of  this  discussion 
have  appeared  within,  or  just  before,  the  time 
that  this  book  has  been  in  preparation.  Of  these 
I  will  name  a  few  that  have  most  interested  me. 
In  this  country  have  appeared  Toy's  "  Judaism 
and  Christianity,"  Stevens'  "  Pauline  Theology," 
and  DuBose's  "  The  Soteriology  of  the  New  Tes- 


Viii  PREFACE. 

tament."  The  first  of  these,  while  it  touches 
only  incidentally  upon  the  work  of  Paul,  presents 
in  a  helpful  and  interesting  way  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  environment  in  which  he  lived. 
The  two  others,  rejecting  the  traditional  substi- 
tutionary theory,  present  theories  more  in  accord 
with  the  spirit  of  the  present  age.  I  shall  refer 
to  them  briefly  in  the  text.  Of  those  pubHshed 
in  England  may  be  mentioned  the  first  volume 
of  Smith's  "  Religion  of  the  Semites,"  which 
in  certain  of  its  aspects  I  am  tempted  to  call 
epoch-making  ;  and  Cave's  "  Scriptural  Doctrine 
of  Sacrifice  and  Atonement,"  which  in  its  treat- 
ment of  Hebrew  sacrifices  is  far  in  advance  of 
most  works  that  represent  the  same  general 
position. 

The  Germans  might  appear  to  have  been  work- 
ing specially  for  my  advantage.  I  will  name  par- 
ticularly Lipsius'  Commentaries  on  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  and  on  that  to  the  Galatians,  and 
Schmiedel's  Commentary  on  the  Epistles  to  the 
Corinthians,  these  being  in  the  second  volume 
of  Holzman's  **  Hand  Commentar  zum  Neuen 
Testament ;  "  also  the  eighth  edition  of  Meyer's 
Commentary  on  the  Romans,  which  is  very  dif- 
ferent from  former  editions,  having  been  to  a 


PREFACE.  IX 

great  extent  reworked  by  Dr.  Weiss,  the  editor. 
Besides  these  a  new  edition  has  appeared  of 
Weizsacker's  "  Das  Apostolische  Zeitalter  der 
Christlichen  Kirche,"  and  a  new  edition  of  Pflei- 
derer's  "  Paulinismus,"  the  most  important  spe- 
cial work  on  this  theme  within  my  knowledge. 
To  these  is  to  be  added  the  second  volume  of 
Beyschlag's  "  Neutestamentliche  Theologie,"  in 
which  the  teaching  of  Paul  is  made  an  object  of 
special  study. 

The  appearance  within  two  or  at  most  three 
years  of  so  many  books  relating  more  or  less 
directly  to  the  teaching  of  Paul,  most  of  them 
discussing  his  scheme  of  atonement,  shows  a  gen- 
eral interest  in  the  theme,  and  indicates  no  less 
clearly  the  unsettled  state  of  the  public  mind  in 
regard  to  the  subject.  Though  I  have  differed 
from  all  these  books,  so  far  as  my  special  theme 
is  concerned,  yet  I  have  derived  profit  from  them 
all  ;  from  some  much  greater  than  the  references 
to  them  in  the  text  would  indicate.  Those  that 
did  nothing  more  showed  at  least  the  views  of 
Paul's  teaching  with  which  mine  would  be  con- 
fronted, and  against  which  it  should  as  far  as 
possible  be  guarded. 

I  will   not  attempt    to  name  the  older  books 


X  PREFACE. 

which  I  have  found  helpful.  I  cannot,  however, 
pass  over  Weber's  "  System  der  Palastinischen 
Theologie,"  which  I  have  found  invaluable. 
Meyer's  Commentaries  have  been  constantly  by 
my  side,  and  when  I  have  turned  to  Thayer's 
Lexicon,  it  has  been  as  to  a  court  of  ultimate 
appeal. 

The  references  to  Meyer's  Commentaries  are, 
when  it  is  not  otherwise  stated,  to  the  American 
edition.  The  citations  from  the  Bible  are  from 
the  Revised  Version. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

The  Presumption  from  the  Nature  of  Sacrifice. 

I.  Sacrifices  in  General i 

Introductory i 

Offerings  to  the  Gods lo 

Animal  Sacrifices i6 

Piacula .20 

The  Blood  of  the  Sacrifice 23 

Human  Sacrifices    .        .        . 27 

Certain  Qualifications          .• 33 

Pseudo-Sacrifices 36 

II.  Sacrifices  among  the  Hebrews 40 

General  Considerations 40 

The  Fiftieth  Psalm 43 

"  The  Bread  of  God  " 47 

Substitutes  for  Animal  Sacrifices 49 

The  Day  of  Atonement 52 

The  Blood  of  the  Sacrifice 55 

Pseudo-Sacrifices 56 

III.  Early  Christian  View  of  Sacrifice  •        •        •        •  59 

IV.  Conclusion 61 


XU  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   II. 
The  Presumption  from  the  History  of  Doctrine. 

Preliminary  Considerations 64 

The  Apostolic  Fathers 67 

A  Ransom  to  the  Devil 69 

Saint  Anselm 73 

Saint  Thomas 79 

Luther 80 

Socinus  and  Grotius 83 

Modern  Developments  of  Doctrine 89 

Conclusion 97 

CHAPTER   III. 
The  Traditional  View  Unscriptural. 

Preliminary  Considerations 103 

Two  Assumptions 107 

The  " Curse  "  of  Christ in 

The  Abolition  of  the  Law 119 

The  Interpretation  of  Pfleiderer  and  Weizsacker       .        .  124 

Meyer's  Interpretation 130 

Hebrews  ix.  13,  14 133 

Conclusion 135 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Gospel  of  Paul. 

Sources 136 

The  Abolition  of  the  Law 144 

The  Remission  of  Sins 158 

Salvation  for  the  Gentiles 165 

Figurative  Language 168 

2  Corinthians  v.  21 176 

Romans  iii.  24-26 179 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

The  Resurrection  of  Christ 199 

Other  New  Testament  Writings     .        .        .        .        .        .217 

CHAPTER  V. 
Paul's  Philosophy  of  History. 

The  Fall 239 

The  Promise  to  Abraham 243 

The  Law 245 

The  Transitoriness  of  the  Law 254 

The  Doctrine  of  Election 262 

The  Great  Consummation 277 

CHAPTER   VL 
Paul's  Doctrine  of  Salvation 280 

Conclusion       . 294 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  PRESUMPTION  FROM  THE  NATURE  OF 
SACRIFICE. 

I.  Sacrifices  in  General. 

Introductory. 
In  the  New  Testament  the  death  of  Christ  is 
at  times  spoken  of  as  if  it  could  be  regarded  as 
in  some  sense  a  sacrifice  by  which  the  believer 
is  relieved  from  the  condemnation  of  his  sin. 
This  use  of  sacrificial  language  in  relation  to 
the  death  of  Christ  is  most  common  in  the  Epis- 
tle to  the  Hebrews.  In  the  Epistles  of  Paul  it 
is  far  less  common,  yet  frequent  enough  to  de- 
mand our  careful  attention.  Indeed,  there  is 
no  passage  of  the  kind  in  the  New  Testament  so 
important  and  suggestive  as  that  which  is  found 
in  the  third  chapter  of  the  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the 
Romans.  I  will  quote  the  familiar  words,  which 
may  represent  the  general  teaching  of  Paul  in 
regard  to  this  matter  :  — 


2  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

"  Being  justified  freely  by  his  grace  through 
the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus  :  whom 
God  set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation,  through  faith, 
by  his  blood,  to  shew  his  righteousness,  because 
of  the  passing  over  of  the  sins  done  aforetime, 
in  the  forbearance  of  God  ;  for  the  shewing,  I 
say,  of  his  righteousness  at  this  present  season  ; 
that  he  might  himself  be  just,  and  the  justifier 
of  him  that  hath  faith  in  Jesus." 

In  this  passage  the  death  of  Jesus  is  repre- 
sented as  an  atoning  sacrifice,  through  the  effi- 
cacy of  which  the  sins  of  the  believer  are  re- 
mitted. When  this  is  said,  I  suppose  that  the 
thought  of  the  majority  of  readers  leaps  to  the 
conclusion  that,  in  the  thought  of  Paul,  Jesus 
bore  in  man's  place  the  penalty  which  the  sins 
of  the  world  have  deserved,  in  the  sense  that 
his  blood  satisfied  either  the  wrath  or  the  jus- 
tice of  God.  Meyer's  Commentary,  for  instance, 
expresses  this  view  of  the  passage  as  follows  : 
"For  just  in  the  blood  of  Christ,  which  God  has 
not  spared,  lies  the  proof  of  his  righteousness, 
which  He  has  exhibited  through  the  setting 
forth  of  Christ  as  an  expiatory  sacrifice  ;  that 
shed  blood  has  at  once  satisfied  his  justice  and 
demonstrated  it  before  the  whole  world."  ^ 

1  Meyer's  Commenta7y,  a.  1. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  3 

This  view  obviously  assumes  that  the  sacrifices 
of  the  ancient  world  in  general,  and  of  the  He- 
brews in  particular,  had  to  the  worshippers  pre- 
cisely this  significance.  It  assumes  that  when, 
in  ancient  times,  a  victim  was  offered  in  sacri- 
fice, it  acted  as  a  conductor  to  draw  off  the  wrath 
or  the  justice  of  God  from  the  worshipper  to  it- 
self. If  this  were  not  the  significance  of  sacri- 
fice in  earlier  times,  then  this  interpretation  of 
the  passage  before  us  would  clearly  be  with- 
out basis.  The  similar  interpretation  that  is  so 
generally  given  to  like  passages  in  the  New 
Testament  would  also  be  without  support.  The 
view  of  the  efficacy  of  the  death  of  Christ  which 
is  implied  in  this  interpretation  might,  indeed, 
be  taught  by  other  forms  of  speech,  and  we 
should  have  still  to  study  carefully  the  less  figu- 
rative statements  of  Paul  and  the  other  New 
Testament  writers  in  order  to  learn  what  their 
thought  of  the  death  of  Christ  really  was.  If 
we  should  find  that  they  elsewhere  taught  that 
Christ  by  his  death  did,  in  man's  stead,  satisfy 
either  the  justice  or  the  wrath  of  God,  then  we 
should  put  this  meaning  into  the  passages  in 
which  sacrificial  terms  were  used.  This  idea 
would,  however,  find  no  support  in  the  sacrificial 
terms  themselves. 


4  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that,  in  entering  upon  a 
careful  study  of  the  teaching  of  Paul,  it  is  im- 
portant to  ask  what  was  the  view  of  sacrifice 
taken  by  the  ancient  world.  When  this  has  been 
determined,  we  may  properly  turn  to  other  forms 
of  statement. 

In  the  last  generation,  what  for  brevity  may 
be  called  the  punitive  theory  of  sacrifice  was 
very  largely  accepted.  By  theologians  it  was 
held,  I  suppose,  almost  universally  ;  with  what 
confidence  may  appear  from  the  following  state- 
ment by  *'  the  moderate  Bishop  Burnett : "  ^ 

"  The  notion  of  an  expiatory  sacrifice  which 
was  then,  when  the  New  Testament  was  writ, 
well  understood  all  the  world  over,  both  by  Jews 
and  Gentiles,  was  this  :  that  the  sin  of  one  per- 
son was  transferred  on  a  man  or  a  beast,  who 
upon  that  was  devoted  or  offered  to  God,  and 
suffered  in  the  room  of  the  offending  person  ;  and 
by  this  oblation,  the  punishment  of  the  sin  being 
laid  on  the  sacrifice,  an  expiation  was  made  for 
sin,  and  the  sinner  was  believed  to  be  reconciled 
to  God."  2 

I  will  give  another  example  of  the  same  sort 

1  Princeton  Essays,  i.  323. 

2  Burnett  on  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.     Article  2. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  5 

from  a  German  writer,  also  of  a  former  gener- 
ation, to  whom  I  shall  have  again  occasion  to 
refer.  Ernst  von  Lasaulx,  a  student  of  vast, 
though  not  always  critical,  learning  in  regard 
to  classical  antiquities,  says  in  a  discussion  of 
the  atoning  sacrifices  of  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans :  — 

"  The  question  as  to  what  is  the  sense  and  the 
original  signification  of  sacrifice  belongs  to  the 
most  difficult  problems  of  the  Philosophy  of  Re- 
ligion. History  gives  us  no  help  in  the  matter ; 
and  language,  by  means  of  which  we  can  in  so 
many  cases  reach  the  underlying  thought,  gives 
us  here  no  light.  .  .  .  We  must,  therefore,  since 
nothing  is  given  us  either  in  language  or  in  his- 
tory, attempt  to  seek  logically  the  origin  of  sac- 
rifice and  its  original  significance."  ^ 

This  writer  then  goes  on  to  explain  that  the 
origin  of  sacrifice  was  from  the  sense  of  sinful- 
ness. He  gives  a  vast  and  appalling  list  of  the 
human  sacrifices  that  have  been  offered ;  and  in 
these  he  finds  the  primitive  idea  of  the  rite  most 
clearly  manifested.  In  these,  and  in  animal  sac- 
rifice in  general,  he  sees  the  attempt  to  satisfy 
the  justice  of  the  gods.     In  all  this  he  finds  a 

1  Lasaulx,  Studien  zuni  dassischen  Alterthum^  p.  233. 


6  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

foreshadowing  of  the  sacrifice  on  Golgotha.^  He 
finds  a  "  fearful  mystery  "  in  the  traces  of  a  cus- 
tom according  to  which  the  sacrificer  partook  of 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  victim  of  these  rites, 
and  especially  of  that  of  sacrificed  children.  This 
** fearful  mystery"  seems  to  have  been  that  in 
this  we  have  prefigured  the  mystical  appropria- 
tion by  the  Christian  of  the  blood  of  Christ. 

Nothing  shows  more  clearly  the  hold  that  the 
view  which  I  have  been  illustrating  has  taken  of 
the  Christian  world  than  the  fact  that  when  the 
"sacrificial  theory"  of  the  death  of  Christ  is 
spoken  of  even  now,  it  generally  means  the.  vica- 
rious bearing  of  the  penalty  which  man  had 
incurred.  I  was  talking  with  one  of  the  most 
learned,  and  best  known  students  of  the  Greek 
language  and  literature  in  our  country  in  regard 
to  the  significance  of  sacrifice  among  the  Greeks. 
I  asked  him  if,  in  his  judgment,  it  was  understood 

1  The  essay  is  entitled  Die  Siihnopfer  der  Griecheii  und  Ro- 
mer,  und  ihr  Verhdltniss  zu  dem  Eineji  auf  Golgotha.  It  is  con- 
tained in  Studien  zum  dassischen  Alterihum,  published  in  1852. 
I  quote  from  this  writer  because  in  no  later  one  have  I  happened 
to  meet  so  clear  a  statement  of  the  position  held  by  him ;  and 
nowhere  else  have  I  found  so  full  a  catalogue  of  human  sacrifices. 
Probably  no  writer  since,  with  anything  like  his  learning,  has  de- 
fended the  thesis  that  he  maintains. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  7 

by  them  in  the  vicariously  punitive  sense  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking.  He  replied  that 
he  had  never  heard  the  idea  suggested.  The 
possibility  of  raising  the  question  surprised  him. 
Yet  at  the  next  moment  he  referred  to  the  "  sac- 
rificial theory  of  the  death  of  Christ,"  meaning 
by  it  the  vicariously  punitive  theory  which  he 
had  never  connected  with  sacrifice  itself. 

When  we  ask  what  is  the  real  significance  of 
the  sacrifices  of  the  ancient  world,  or  of  those 
that  are  performed  by  heathen  at  the  present 
day,  we  find  that  this  aspect  of  vicarious  penalty 
is  present  to  a  very  small  extent,  if  at  all. 

The  view  that  the  sacrificial  victim  was  the  vica- 
rious object  of  the  wrath  of  the  Divinity  is  hardly 
referred  to  by  experts  in  regard  to  the  general 
history  of  mythology  and  religion.  The  distin- 
guished professor  of  Greek  to  whom  I  have 
just  referred  had  never  heard  of  it,  except  in  re- 
lation to  the  death  of  Christ.  De  la  Saussaye, 
in  his  "  History  of  Religion,"  makes  no  allusion 
to  it.  It  is  beginning  to  be  less  generally  held 
by  theologians.  The  subject  is,  however,  of 
such  great  importance  in  the  study  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Paul  that  I  need  offer  no  further  apology 
for  dwelling  upon  it  at  such  length  as  may  be 


8  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

necessary  in  order  to  illustrate  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  sacrifice.  A  thorough  treatment  of  the 
matter  would,  of  course,  far  exceed  our  present 
limits. 

The  view  of  sacrifice  to  which  I  have  referred 
was  adopted,  somewhat  late,  by  the  Christian 
world.  It  appears,  strangely  enough,  to  have 
grown  out  of  the  theory  in  regard  to  the  efficacy 
of  the  death  of  Christ  which  it  is  now  used  to  sup- 
port. This  theory  was  adopted  without  any  as- 
sumption as  to  the  significance  of  sacrifice  in  the 
past.  In  the  "Cur  Deus  Homo"  of  Anselm, 
the  treatise  that  first  practically  introduced  the 
substitutionary  theory  of  the  death  of  Christ  to 
the  Christian  world,  this  is  nowhere  connected 
with  the  idea  of  sacrifice.  Later,  however,  by 
an  easy  transition,  naturally  suggested  by  the 
language  of  the  New  Testament,  the  substitu- 
tionary theory  of  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ 
was  extended  to  sacrifices  in  general.  It  hap- 
pened thus  that  a  meaning  which  Christianity 
had  introduced  into  sacrifice  was  supposed  to 
have  been  derived  by  Christianity  from  the  gen- 
erally recognized  significance  of  sacrificial  rites. 
Such  reversal  of  relation  is  curious  ;  but  not  al- 
together without  parallel  in  the  history  of  belief. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  9 

When,  a  few  paragraphs  back,  I  introduced  a 
quotation  from  Lasaulx,  I  did  this  partly  to  illus- 
trate the  view  of  which  I  had  been  speaking ;  but 
more  to  show  that  this  scholar,  with  all  his  vast 
learning,  could  bring  nothing  to  support  his 
view  but  an  a  priori  notion  as  to  how  men  must 
have  felt  and  what  they  must  have  done.  There 
is,  however,  in  all  the  departments  of  human 
study  none  in  which  a  priori  reasoning  is  more 
out  of  place  than  in  the  consideration  of  the 
ideas  of  peoples  who  belong  to  a  stage  of  culture 
different  from  our  own.  The  investigation  into 
the  habits  of  these  earher  peoples  has  been  a 
series  of  surprises.  Who  could  have  conjectured 
in  advance  anything  of  that  widespread  system 
of  Totemism  which  Frazer  ^  has  presented  with 
such  detail,  the  importance  of  which  we  are  only 
beginning  to  recognize,  and  the  significance  of 
which  we  are  scarcely  beginning  to  comprehend  } 
Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  if  many  of  these  early 
methods  of  thought  and  action  will  ever  be  really 
understood,  for  the  reason  that  these  customs 
so  soon  become  merely  traditional,  and  those 
who  practise  them  may  no  longer  attach  a  defi- 
nite significance  to  them.     In  looking  at  meth- 

1  Totemism, 


tJNIVEBSITT 


lO  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

ods  of  life  that  express  feelings  and  notions  so 
different  from  our  own,  we  feel,  so  far  as  any 
comprehension  is  involved,  almost  as  helpless  as 
we  do  in  watching  the  economy  of  an  ant-hill. 
In  the  ant-hill  there  is  a  civilization  very  like  our 
own,  and  yet,  so  far  as  the  inner  relations  which 
it  expresses  are  concerned,  it  is  utterly  foreign 
to  us  and  unimaginable  by  us.  In  all  these  mat- 
ters of  early  history,  there  is  but  one  course  to 
be  taken  :  we  can  simply  watch  and  compare. 
We  must  leave  our  own  habits  of  thought  wholly 
out  of  the  account.  We  must  take  what  we  see 
without  attempt  at  explanation,  except  so  far  as 
this  is  found  in  some  kindred  fact.  In  doing 
this,  we  may  not  reach  the  true  explanation,  but 
we  shall  escape  to  a  great  degree  the  danger  of 
false  explanations. 

Offerings  to  the  Gods. 

In  these  later  years,  great  study  has  been 
given  to  the  mythology  and  to  the  religious  rites 
even  of  the  least  developed  peoples.  There  are 
at  easy  command  various  collections,  of  facts  re- 
lating to  such  themes.  The  admirable  volumes 
of  Tylor  may  serve  as  an  example  of  these. 

We  find  in  such  presentations  a  very  different 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  1 1 

State  of  things  from  that  which  Lasaulx  imagined. 
He  supposed  that  men  lived  at  first  in  grateful 
trust  and  obedience  towards  God,  and  that  while 
they  so  lived  there  was  no  offering.  After  men 
had  sinned,  they  sought  to  atone  for  their  wrong- 
doing by  giving  up  their  own  lives,  or  by  offering 
other  lives  that  should  take  their  place.  All  sac- 
rifice is  of  this  vicarious  nature.  Such  was  the 
theory.  What  we  actually  find  is  that  the  savage 
recognizes  forces  to  which  he  is  subject,  both 
natural  and  supernatural.  He  is  subject  to  his 
chief.  He  is  at  the  mercy  also  of  invisible  pow- 
ers, and  of  powers  which  manifest  themselves  in 
the  objects  of  the  natural  world.  He  approaches 
all  these  in  very  much  the  same  way.  Tylor 
says  :  "  As  prayer  is  a  request  made  to  a  Deity 
as  if  he  were  a  man,  so  sacrifice  is  a  gift  made  to 
a  Deity  as  if  he  were  a  man."  ^ 

This  may  be  illustrated  by  the  similarity  that 
we  find  between  offerings  made  to  the  spirits  of 
the  dead  and  those  made  to  the  gods,  or  to  nat- 
ural objects  which  were  supposed  to  be,  or  to  be 
manifestations  of,  divinities.  This  resemblance 
is  so  striking  that  Herbert  Spencer  has  used  it 
as  an  argument  to  prove  that  there  were  no  di- 

1  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  375. 


12  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

vinities  except  those  that  were,  or  were  developed 
out  of,  spirits  of  the  dead.^  The  reasoning  of 
Spencer  I  conceive  to  be,  in  this  matter,  wholly 
wrong,  but  a  consideration  of  it  does  not  concern 
us  here.  It  may,  however,  illustrate  the  point  to 
which  I  am  referring,  namely,  that  the  offerings 
to  the  gods  were  of  the  nature  of  those  made  to 
deceased  ancestors,  and  that  if  the  services  to 
the  gods  had  been  actually  developed  out  of  fu- 
neral rites  they  could  hardly  have  been  other 
than  they  were,  since  the  gifts  made  to  the  dead 
consist  for  the  most  part  of  the  things  which 
were  dear  in  life,  and  which  are  supposed  to 
bring  pleasure,  or  to  be  of  service,  to  the  spirit 
in  its  new  abode.  This  being  so,  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  similar  gifts  were  offered  to  the 
gods  and  to  the  spirits  of  nature  with  a  similar 
purpose. 

These  offerings,  in  both  cases,  may  have  been 
made  in  part  from  love  and  gratitude ;  but  they 
were  made  most  largely  in  order  that  some  evil 
might  be  averted  or  some  good  obtained.  At  no 
stage  of  the  religious  life  is  it  quite  easy  to  sep- 
arate the  elements  self-interest  and  gratitude. 
Even  in  Christian  worship  it  is  not  easy  always 

^  Principles  of  Sociology,  i.  257  ff. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  1 3 

to  separate  the  two.  In  the  earlier  forms  of 
religion  the  object  of  religious  rites  is  more  often 
to  appease  divinities  who  are  ill  disposed,  to  win 
the  favor  of  the  indifferent,  or  to  preserve  that 
of  those  that  have  shown  themselves  helpful,  * 
than  to  express  pure  gratitude  or  affection,  if 
indeed  this  last  purpose  is  ever  recognized  as 
distinct  from  all  others.  Among  the  early  peo- 
ples, the  idea  of  sinfulness  separates  itself  very 
slowly  from  that  of  the  violation  of  the  recognized 
custom  in  civil  or  religious  matters.  With  rela- 
tion to  the  gods,  sin  is  the  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious offending  of  them,  which  offence  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  loss  of  their  favor.  Often  some 
misfortune  which  befalls  a  man  is  the  only  rea- 
son that  he  has  for  thinking  that  he  has  offended 
a  divinity.  In  this  case,  he  may  be  in  doubt  what 
divinity  he  has  offended,  and  thus  to  what  divin- 
ity he  shall  bring  his  reconciling  gift.  Offerings 
of  all  sorts,  whether  of  animals  or  of  inanimate 
things,  are  gifts  designed  to  win  or  to  preserve 
the  favor  of  the  god.  One  cannot  examine  the 
reports  of  early  religious  customs  without  meet- 
ing this  condition  of  things  at  every  turn.  Such 
expressions  as  one  that  is  reported  from  the 
Papuan  island  of  Tanna  are  very  common.    Here 


14  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

the  gods  are  said  to  be  the  spirits  of  departed 
ancestors.  The  offering  of  firstfruits  is  accom- 
panied by  this  prayer:  "  Compassionate  Father  ! 
Here  is  some  food  for  you  ;  eat  it ;  be  kind  to 
us  on  account  of  it  !  "  ^  A  good  example  of  the 
same  thing  is  found  in  the  following  case  from 
Guinea.  The  sea  was  rough,  and  the  king  un- 
dertook to  make  it  quiet  for  the  sake  of  some 
white  visitors.  He  sent  his  fetich  man  with 
various  gifts  to  the  sea.  This  representative 
made  a  speech  to  the  sea.  "  Assuring  it  that  his 
king  was  its  friend,  and  loved  the  white  men  ; 
that  they  were  honest  fellows,  and  came  to  trade 
with  him  for  what  he  wanted  ;  and  that  he  re- 
quested the  sea  not  to  be  angry,  nor  hinder  them 
to  land  their  goods ;  he  told  it  that  if  it  wanted 
palm  oil,  his  king  had  sent  it  some,  and  so  threw 
the  jar  with  the  oil  into  the  sea,  as  he  did,  with 
the  same  compliment,  rice,  corn,  etc."  ^  We  may 
place  with  these  examples  this  very  realistic  ex- 
pression in  a  Vedic  hymn  to  Agni,  the  fire  god  : 
"The  gods  eat  what  is  sacrificed  in  thee."  ^ 
A  very  striking  illustration  of  the  same  view 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  364. 

2  Tylor,  Ibid.,  ii.  377. 
8  Rig  Veda,  i.  94. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  1 5 

of  sacrifice  among  a  people  much  more  advanced 
than  any  that  we  have  thus  far  considered  is 
found  in  one  of  the  Hindu  Upanishads.  It  rep- 
resents a  period  of  philosophic  thought.  This 
thought  offered  to  the  spirit  wearied  with  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  life  present  and  of  the  lives 
to  come,  an  eternal  rest  in  the  unconscious  bless- 
edness of  the  One  which  was  the  All.  This 
result  was  to  be  reached  by  knowledge  and  med- 
itation, and  not  by  worship  of  the  gods  and  offer- 
ings made  to  them.  The  worship  of  the  gods 
was  recognized,  indeed,  as  the  means  by  which 
certain  minor  blessings  could  be  secured.  The 
worshipper  might  win  through  them,  for  a  sea- 
son, a  place  in  heaven.  When,  however,  the 
power  of  the  religious  service  was  exhausted, 
the  wearisome  round  of  lower  existences  must 
begin  again.  Eternal  blessedness  or  peace  could 
be  reached  only  by  other  paths.  The  gods,  nat- 
urally enough,  did  not  smile  upon  this  philoso- 
phy, which  would  tend  to  draw  from  them  their 
worshippers.  A  passage  in  one  of  the  Upan- 
ishads speaks  thus  of  one  who  was  paying  service 
to  the  gods,  not  understanding  the  deeper  mys- 
tery of  life  :  "  He  does  not  know.  Like  a  beast 
he  is  used  by  the  gods.     As  verily  many  beasts 


1 6  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

maintain    a   man,    so   every  man    maintains  the 

gods.     It  is  not  pleasant   even  if  only  one  beast 

be  taken  away.     How  then  if  many  }     Therefore 

it  is  not  pleasant  to  them  that  men  should  know 

this."i 

Animal  Sacrifices. 

The  view  held  of  animal  sacrifice  would  seem 
to  be  the  same  as  that  of  other  offerings.  There 
is  in  the  Rig  Veda  a  hymn  describing  the  sacri- 
fice of  a  horse,  which  expresses  so  perfectly  the 
idea  which  the  Vedic  worshipper  held  of  animal 
sacrifice  that  I  will  quote  certain  verses  from 
it.  It  is  interesting  as  being  not  only  thus  trans- 
parent, but  as  being  the  earliest  account  of 
animal  sacrifice  performed  by  the  Indo-Germanic 
race. 

.  .  .  "The  bright-backed  horse  goes  to  the 
regions  of  the  gods.  Wise  poets  celebrate  him, 
and  we  have  won  a  good  friend  for  the  love  of 
the  gods. 

"The  halter  of  the  swift  one,  the  heel  ropes 
of  the  horse,  the  head  ropes,  the  girths,  the  bri- 
dle, and  even  the  grass  that  has  been  put  into 
his  mouth,  —  may  all  these  which  belong  to  thee 
be  with  the  gods. 

1  Brikad  Upanishad^  i.  4,  9. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  1/ 

..."  The  juice  that  flows  from  thy  roasted 
loins  on  the  spit  after  thou  hast  been  killed,  may 
it  not  run  on  the  earth  or  the  grass ;  may  it  be 
given  to  the  gods  who  desire  it. 

..."  The  cover  which  they  stretch  over  the 
horse,  and  the  golden  ornaments,  the  head  ropes 
of  the  horse,  and  the  foot  ropes,  all  these  which 
are  dear  to  the  gods  they  offer  to  them.  .  .  . 

"  May  not  thy  dear  soul  burn  thee  while  thou 
art  coming  near ;  may  the  axe  not  stick  to  thy 
body.  May  no  greedy  and  unskilful  immolator, 
missing  with  the  sword,  throw  thy  mangled  limbs 
together.  Indeed,  thou  diest  not  thus;  thou 
sufferest  not ;  thou  goest  to  the  gods  on  easy 
paths.  .  .  . 

"  May  this  horse  give  us  cattle  and  horses, 
men,  progeny,  and  all-sustaining  wealth.  May 
Aditi  keep  us  free  from  sin  ;  may  the  horse  of 
this  sacrifice  give  us  strength."  ^ 

I  have  called  this  hymn  transparent.  It  shows 
in  an  extremely  interesting  way  the  double  as- 
pect under  which  the  sacrifice  was  regarded.  The 
horse   was  looked   upon  as  a  feast   which   was 

1  Rig  Veda,  i.  162.  The  extracts  are  taken  from  a  transla- 
tion of  Max  Mueller's  History  of  Ancient  Sanskrit  Literaturey 
P-  553« 


1 8  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

offered  to  the  gods,  and  of  which  they  were  ex- 
pected to  partake ;  and  at  the  same  time  as  the 
gift  of  the  animal,  as  such,  with  all  his  trappings, 
—  a  gift  which  should  be  for  the  permanent  plea- 
sure or  the  service  of  the  divinities.  The  last 
verse  expresses  with  utter  frankness  what  the 
worshipper  hoped  to  gain  from  the  gift.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  hint  of 
a  vicarious  penal  aspect  of  the  sacrifice. 

This  hymn  may  well  be  considered  in  connec- 
tion with  the  extract  from  the  Upanishads,  which 
I  have  placed  just  before  it.  It  represents  the 
earlier  and  simpler  form  of  Vedic  religious 
thought  as  that  represents  the  later  and  more 
philosophical.  Both  hold  substantially  the  same 
view  of  sacrifice.  In  the  one  case,  the  slain  horse 
was  sent  as  a  gift  which  would  bring  joy  to  the 
hearts  of  the  divinities.  In  the  later  thought, 
it  was  upon  the  gifts  of  the  worshippers  that 
the  gods  depended  for  their  support.  Through 
all  the  intervening  centuries  the  significance  of 
offering  to  the  gods  had  remained  unchanged. 

The  view  here  taken  of  animal  sacrifice  is  con- 
firmed by  the  fact  that  vegetable  offerings  were 
sometimes  substituted  for  this.  It  is  obvious 
that  if  the  vegetable  may  be  used  instead  of  the 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  19 

animal,  there  cannot  be,  at  least  at  the  time  when 
the  change  is  made,  any  radical  difference  in  the 
ideas  connected  with  the  two.  Max  Mueller  gives 
a  passage  from  the  Aitareya-brahmana^  which 
may  be  used  to  illustrate  this  point  :  ''  It  is  said 
there  that  the  gods  took  man  for  their  victim. 
As  he  was  taken,  medha  (the  sacrifice  or  the 
spirit)  went  out  of  him.  It  entered  the  horse. 
Therefore  the  horse  became  the  sacrificial  ani- 
mal. Then  the  gods  took  the  horse,  but  as  it 
was  taken,  the  medha  went  out  of  him.  It  en- 
tered the  ox.  Therefore  the  ox  became  the 
sacrificial  animal.  The  same  happened  with  the 
ox.  Afterward  the  sheep,  then  the  goat,  and  at 
last  the  earth  became  the  victim.  From  the  earth 
rice  was  produced,  and  rice  was  offered  ...  in 
lieu  of  the  sacrificial  animal."  ^ 

Weber  truly  remarks  that  the  object  of  this 
legend  is  obviously  to  show  that  the  offering  of 
a  sacrificial  cake  has  the  same  efficacy  as  the 
offering  of  sacrificial  animals.^    If  this  is  so,  it  is 

^  Ait-br.  6, 
'  2  A  History  of  Ancient  Sanskrit  Literature,  p-  419. 

*  Zeitschrift  der  deutschen  Morgenlandischen  Gessellschaft,  xviii. 
263.  Max  Mueller,  by  an  arbitrary  qualification,  says,  "  For  cer- 
tain sacrifices  these  rice  cakes  were  as  efficient  as  animals." 


20  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL, 

impossible  that  the  sacrifice  of  the  animal  carried 
with  it  any  suggestion  of  penal  substitution.^ 

The  classic  writers  give  abundant  evidence  of 
the  view  that  was  taken  of  animal  sacrifices  in 
the  far  later  development  of  people  of  the  gen- 
eral stock  to  which  the  Vedic  worshippers  be- 
longed. Horace,  for  instance,  exclaims  to  the 
fountain  of  Bandusia, 

•'  Cras  donaberis  haedo,"  2 

precisely  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  he  cries  to 
Venus, 

'•  Illic  plurima  naribus 
Duces  tura."  ^ 

In  each  case  it  was  a  gift  which  the  object  of 
the  service  was  expected  to  receive  with  satis- 
faction ;  and  in  neither  case  is  there  any  intima- 
tion of  the  transferrence  of  penalty. 

Piacula. 

So  far  as  the  nature  of  the  sacrifice  is  con- 
cerned, there  would  seem  to  be  no  difference  be- 
tween piacula   and    other   offerings.     Hermann 

1  The  substitution  of  the  water  of  the  animal  for  blood,  in  the 
Mazdean  religion,  is  a  striking  example  to  the  same  effect.  See 
p.  25. 

2  Odes,  iii.  13.  *  Odes,  iv.  i. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  21 

states  distinctly  that,  leaving  out  of  the  account 
a  certain  symbolism  not  concerning  our  present 
topic,  *'the  atoning  sacrifice,  like  every  other, 
falls  simply  under  the  general  notion  of  gifts  with 
which  the  anthropomorphic  imagination  of  the 
older  humanity  believed  it  to  be  necessary  to  sup- 
port its  wishes  and  its  prayers."  ^  Indeed,  no  such 
difference  should  be  presumed  unless  it  were  dis- 
tinctly stated.  The  ceremonies  which  accompa- 
nied atoning  sacrifices  were  often  opposed  to  any 
conception  of  them  which  would  regard  the  vic- 
tim as  suffering,  in  the  place  of  the  worshipper, 
the  effect  of  the  divine  anger.  One  element  of 
these  ceremonies  was  the  dances  by  which  the 
sacrifice  was  often  accompanied.  Servius  states 
that  when  the  Romans  were  suffering  under  the 
anger  of  the  mother  of  the  gods,  and  could  not  ap- 
pease her  by  sacrifices  nor  by  games,  an  old  man 
danced  in  a  prescribed  manner;  and  he  adds 
that  this  dance  was  the  sole  '^  causa placationisT  ^ 
And  again  he  states  that  when  games  that  were 
being  celebrated  at  Rome  in  honor  of  Apollo 
were  interrupted  by  the  approach  of  Hannibal, 

1  Hermann,  Lehrbiich   des  gottesdienstlichen  Alterthilmer  der 
Gtiechen,  p.  134. 

2  Servii  Commentarius  in  Virgilii  /Eneidos,  edited  by  H.  A. 
Lion,  iii.  279. 


22  .  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

all  the  men  seized  their  arms  and  rushed  to  meet 
him.  When  they  returned  they  feared  that  the 
piactdurn  had  failed,  but  they  found  a  certain  old 
man  dancing.  He  assured  them  that  his  dance 
had  not  been  at  all  interrupted.  Hence  arose  a 
proverb,  Salva  res  est,  saltat  senex}  All  this  is 
so  foreign  to  our  notions  that  it  is  incomprehen- 
sible. It  is  very  obvious,  however,  that  a  service 
in  which  dancing  is  at  least  as  essential  as  the 
slaying  of  the  victim,  and,  according  to  the  last 
example,  may  be  more  efficacious  than  this,  can- 
not be  supposed  to  derive  its  power  from  the 
fact  that  the  wrath  of  a  god  has  smitten  a  substi- 
tute for  an  offender. 

Another  indication,  if  such  were  needed,  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  animal  offered  was  selected 
often  with  special  reference  to  the  divinity  to 
whom  the  sacrifice  was  made.  What  was  the  re- 
lation between  the  divinities  and  these  special 
animals  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  inquire.  The 
fact  obviously  implies  that  the  divinities  did,  for 
one  reason  or  another,  prefer  certain  animals  to 
others.  They  had,  we  might  say,  their  tastes,  al- 
though "taste"  is  a  word  altogether  too  superfi- 
cial to  express  the  relationship.    It  may  have  had 

1  Servii  Commentarius  in  Virgilii  ^neidos,  viii.  i  ro. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  23 

something  to  do  with  totemism.  However  this 
may  be,  if  the  victim  bore  the  penalty  of  the  sin 
of  the  offender,  we  should  suppose  that  if  it 
varied  according  to  any  special  law,  it  would  be 
with  reference  to  the  nature  of  the  sin  or  to  that 
of  the  sinner,  rather  than  to  the  divinities  to 
whom  the  offering  was  made.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  sacrifice  were  a  gift  to  the  divinity, 
the  animal  would  naturally  vary  as  different 
divinities  were  invoked. 

*  The  Blood  of  the  Sacrifice. 

Another  illustration  of  the  same  thing  is  sug- 
gested by  the  use  made  of  blood  in  the  rites  of 
purification.  The  application  of  the  blood  of  the 
sacrifice,  when  it  was  thus  used,  served  to  inten- 
sify or  concentrate  the  expiatory  effect  of  the 
sacrifice.  The  most  extreme  example  of  this  use 
of  the  blood  is  found  in  the  Taurobolium.^  In 
this,  the  platform  on  which  the  victims  were 
slaughtered  was  perforated.  The  person  offer- 
ing the  sacrifice  placed  himself  beneath  this 
platform,  and  was  thus  literally  bathed  in  the 
blood  of  the  victim.  Precisely  what  significance 
the  blood  was  assumed  to  possess  it  may  be  im- 

1  Vividly  described  in  Boissier,  La  Religion  Romaine. 


24  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

possible  for  us  to  say.  It  may  have  been  to 
identify  the  person  offering  the  sacrifice,  so  that 
when  the  Deity  looked  upon  him  he  should  see 
him  only  through  the  blood  of  the  gift,  and  should 
thus  so  identify  him  with  it  that  the  satisfaction 
in  the  gift  could  not  be  separated  from  satisfac- 
tion with  the  giver.  It  may  probably  have  been 
something  more  profound  than  this.  It  may 
have  been  at  first,  as  W.  Robertson  Smith  urges, 
a  means  of  intensifying  the  sense  of  tribal  rela- 
tionship between  the  worshipper  and  his  god.^ 

The  idea  thus  proposed  by  Dr.  Smith  so  changes 
the  point  of  view  from  which  sacrifices  have  been 
regarded  that  it  is  of  profound  and  far-reaching 
interest.  In  itself  it  is  clear ;  but  the  sugges- 
tions that  spring  from  it  are  tantalizing  in  their 
vagueness.  It  is  much,  however,  to  get  the  idea 
that  there  is  another  side  to  all  these  matters. 
When  the  ghosts  thronged  about  Odysseus,  what 
power  was  in  the  blood,  that,  after  drinking  it, 
each  should  speak,  and  speak  only  what  was  true  ? 
Was  it  merely,  as  we  might  think  at  first,  that 
the  blood  gave  them  strength  to  speak  with 
earthly  voice.!*  Or  did  it  establish  some  other 
bond  of  possibility  or  compulsion  ?     I  think  that 

^   The  Religion  of  the  Semites. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  2$ 

this  latter  view  is  forced  upon  us  as  we  read,  if 
that  can  be  called  a  **  view  "  which  sees  only  that 
there  is  a  mystery  deeper  than  our  thoughts  can 
fairly  reach. ^ 

When  looked  upon  superficially,  this  use  of  the 
blood  has  been  regarded  as  illustrating  the  sub- 
stitutionary nature  of  sacrifice.  A  closer  exami- 
nation shows  that  this  could  hardly  have  been 
the  case.  If  the  victim  was  to  suffer  the  pen- 
alty which  the  worshipper  deserved,  the  attempt 
would  have  been  made  to  identify  it  with  him. 
This  is  rarely,  if  ever,  the  case.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  attempt  to  identify  the  worshipper 
with  the  victim  is  not  uncommon. 

However  these  two  methods  may,  at  the  first 
glance,  seem  to  resemble  one  another,  there  is 
really  a  great  difference  between  them.  The  ani- 
mal is  identified  with  the  worshipper  in  the  Jew- 
ish scapegoat,  for  instance,  where  the  sins  of  the 
people  were  laid   upon   his   head.     Among  the 

1  An  interesting  illustration  of  this  general  relation  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  in  the  Mazdean  religion  the  water  of  kine  is  used 
as  a  purifying  agent  instead  of  blood.  This  brings  about,  equally 
with  the  blood,  some  sort  of  relationship  with  the  animal ;  and 
suggests  that  the  death  of  the  animal  is  merely  an  incidental 
circumstance,  and  is  not  required  among  people  who  use  a  differ- 
ent but  equally  efificient  animal  secretion.     See  note,  p.  20. 


26  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Egyptians,  the  victim  was  sometimes  marked 
with  a  seal  bearing  the  image  of  a  man  bound 
and  with  a  sword  at  his  throat.  This  was  to 
show  that  the  victim  represented  the  human 
sacrifice  which  milder  manners  had  given  up.^ 

If  the  sacrificed  animal  represented  the  giver 
of  the  sacrifice,  receiving  the  punishment  that 
was  his  due,  this  or  some  other  means  of  identi- 
fication would  have  been  adopted.  In  some  way 
or  other  the  worshipper  would  have  said,  "  Con- 
sider that  this  animal  is  I,"  just  as,  in  the  case 
spoken  of  by  Dr.  Smith,  he  said,  "  Consider  this 
to  be  a  human  sacrifice."  The  use  of  blood  of 
which  I  am  speaking  points  in  the  other  direc- 
tion. The  worshipper  is  not  for  the  moment 
lost  in  the  beast,  thus  receiving  vicarious  pun- 
ishment for  his  sins.  The  beast  is,  so  to  speak, 
absorbed  by  the  man.  The  man  puts  himself  for- 
ward, smeared  with  the  victim's  blood,  to  make 
himself  a  sharer  in  the  good  feeling  which,  in 
some  way  or  other,  the  offering  had  produced 
in  the  divinity. 

1  W.  Robertson  Smith,  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  346. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  2/ 

Humafi  Sacrifices. 

Human  sacrifices  were  offered  in  the  same 
spirit  in  which  other  offerings  were  made.  Among 
the  Aztec  prayers  there  is  one  offered  at  the  be- 
ginning of  a  great  battle.  In  this  the  bodies  and 
blood  of  those  who  were  to  be  slain  are  spoken 
of  as  meat  and  drink  for  the  gods  of  heaven  and 
hades.i  Among  the  Peruvians,  "at  one  great 
ceremony,  where  children  of  each  tribe  were  sac- 
rificed to  propitiate  the  gods,  they  strangled  the 
children,  first  giving  them  to  eat  and  drink,  that 
they  might  not  enter  the  presence  of  the  Creator 
discontented  and  hungry."  ^  These  two  exam- 
ples exhibit  the  two  aspects  under  which  human 
sacrifices  were  regarded.  One  was  the  providing 
for  the  gods  food  of  which  they  were  especially 
fond  ;  the  other  was  the  furnishing  of  them  with 
persons  who  should  in  some  way  contribute  to 
their  satisfaction. 

Of  this  latter  the  Chinese  annals  furnish  a  very 
good  example.  The  emperor  was  dangerously  ill, 
and  his  minister  prayed  to  the  ancestors  of  the 
emperor  that  their  descendant  might  recover, 
and  that  he  might  die  in  his  stead.     His  argu- 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  391.  '-^  Ibid.  p.  392. 


28  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

ment  was  that  the  emperor  was  of  the  greatest 
service  upon  the  earth,  while  he,  the  minister, 
being  accustomed  to  serve,  could  make  himself 
much  more  useful  to  the  imperial  ancestry  in 
heaven  than  could  their  descendant.^ 

One  indication  that  human  sacrifices  were  not 
of  a  substitutionary  nature  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  they  were  as  often  made  in  moments  of  joy 
and  victory  as  in  times  of  disaster.  In  such  cases, 
they  are  obviously  not  sin-offerings,  but  thank- 
offerings. 

The  same  fact  is  illustrated  by  the  circumstance 
that  human  sacrifices  were  made  so  often  to  as- 
sume an  air  of  gladness.  We  have  seen  an  ex- 
ample of  this  in  the  case  of  the  Peruvian  chil- 
dren, who  were  to  approach  the  gods  well  fed  and 
happy.  I  will  quote  from  the  ghastly  collection 
of  Lasaulx  examples  to  a  similar  effect. 

At  Carthage  was  a  metallic  statue  of  Kronos, 
who  stood  in  a  bowed  position,  with  the  hands 
raised  and  stretched  out.  This  statue  was  heated 
by  a  furnace  that  was  placed  under  it.  Into  its 
arms  were  placed  the  children  that  were  to  be 
sacrificed.  They  fell  from  them  into  the  fire  be- 
neath, dying,  and  with  writhings  which  were  con- 

1  Shu  King,  v.  6. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE,  29 

sidered  to  be  smiles.  Those  who  had  no  children 
were  in  the  habit  of  buying  children  from  the 
poor.  The  mother  stood  by,  says  Plutarch,  with- 
out shedding  a  tear  or  letting  a  sigh  be  heard. 
If  they  let  a  sigh  or  a  tear  be  noticed,  they  lost 
the  purchase-money,  though  the  child  was  sacri- 
ficed none  the  less.  Around  the  statue  of  the 
god  there  was  a  great  noise  of  flute-playing  and 
of  tymbals,  in  order  that  no  cries  or  lamentations 
should  be  heard.  Another  author  informs  us  that 
the  tears  of  the  children  were  stifled  through  ca- 
resses, ^^  ne  flebilis  hostia  immoletur!'  ^ 

In  the  same  connection  belongs  what  is  related 
of  the  Carthaginian  inhabitants  of  Sardinia.  It 
is  said  that  on  special  days  they  sacrificed  to 
Kronos  not  only  the  fairest  prisoners,  but  also 
their  own  parents,  when  they  had  passed  their 
seventieth  year.  These,  since  it  was  considered 
slavish  to  weep,  went  to  death  with  a  sardonic 
smile  that  has  become  proverbial.^ 

If  all  these  sacrifices  were  considered  as  gifts 
designed  in  some  way  or  other   to   give   plea- 

^'Lasaulx,  Studien  zum  classischen  Alierthiim,  p.  250. 

2  Lasaulx,  Ibid.,  p.  1 14.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  this 
theory  of  the  origin  of  the  term  "  sardonic  laughter  "  is  no  longer 
given. 


30  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

sure  to  the  gods,  this  concealment  of  reluctance 
or  grief  and  the  simulation  of  pleasure  are  easily 
comprehensible.  If  the  victims  were  suffering 
the  penalty  of  the  sins  of  the  worshippers,  one 
would  suppose  that  the  greater  the  appearance 
of  suffering  the  more  would  the  wrath  of  the 
gods  be  satisfied. 

By  these  examples  I  have  designed  to  illustrate 
the  fact  that  the  fundamental  notion  of  sacrifice 
was  not  the  transferrence  of  penalty  from  the 
guilty  worshipper  to  the  innocent  victim,  but 
that  it  was  the  offering  to  the  divinity  of  some- 
thing that  was  conceived  to  be  an  acceptable 
gift. 

I  will  quote  from  Professor  Sayce  an  example 
taken  from  among  the  Accadians,  which  may 
show  that  statements  that  at  first  sight  appear  to 
bear  unmistakably  the  significance  of  transferred 
penalty  do  not  necessarily  have  this  meaning. 
I  understand  Professor  Sayce  to  give  to  it  the 
vicariously  penal  significance.  All  that  I  would 
urge  is  that  it  may  perfectly  well  be  taken  in 
another  sense.  "  The  father,"  it  is  said,  "  must 
give  the  life  of  the  child  for  the  sin  of  his  own 
soul  ;  the  child's  head  for  his  head,  the  child's 
neck   for   his   neck,   the   child's   breast   for  his 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  3 1 

breast."  ^  There  is  nothing  in  this,  however,  to 
imply  that  the  offering  of  the  child  was  anything 
different  from  a  gift  by  which  the  anger  of  the 
divinity  was  bought  off,  and  thus  appeased,  the 
head  of  the  father  being  ransomed  by  the  head 
of  the  child,  his  neck  by  its  neck.  Indeed,  if  the 
child  were  regarded  as  a  victim  of  the  transferred 
wrath  of  the  divinity,  it  seems  to  me  hardly  prob- 
able that  it  should  be  taken  thus  piecemeal.  The 
individual  man  had  forfeited  his  life  by  commit- 
ting the  sin.  If  the  punishment  were  transferred 
to  the  child,  we  should  expect  that  it,  as  an  indi- 
vidual, should  pay  the  forfeit  with  its  life.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  the  offender  were  buying  off 
his  forfeited  life  by  gifts  acceptable  to  the  divin- 
ity, this  purchase,  part  by  part,  seems  not  unnat- 
ural. 

We  may  illustrate  this  by  a  scene  in  the  "  Rhein- 
gold "  of  Wagner,  in  which  Freya  was  saved 
from  the  giants,  to  whom  she  had  been  pledged. 
They  demanded  that  a  wall  of  gold  should  be 
built,  so  high  that  it  should  completely  conceal 
her,  so  that,  looking  at  it,  they  should  see  not  her, 
but  the  gold.  Thus,  in  the  sacrifice,  the  victim 
was  so  acceptable  to  the  divinity  that  it  concealed 

1  The  HiUert  Lectures,  1837,  p.  78. 


32  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

the  worshipper,  and  satisfaction  with  the  gift 
took  the  place  of  anger.  Perhaps  the  story  in 
the  later  Edda  which  suggested  this  incident  to 
Wagner  may  even  better  illustrate  the  matter 
before  us.  Here  it  was  a  slain  otter  that  proved 
to  be  the  son  of  Hreidmar  which  was  to  be  com- 
pletely covered  with  gold,  so  that  not  even  a  sin- 
gle hair  could  be  seen.  The  gold  concealed  the 
murdered  son.  The  angry  father  saw  that,  and 
not  the  result  of  the  murderous  act. 

This  case,  in  which  the  corpus  delicti  was  cov- 
ered by  the  gold  given  as  a  propitiation,  may 
illustrate  the  idea  of  "covering"  the  sin,. which 
was  prominent  in  the  Hebrew  conception  of 
atonement. 

We  may  most  naturally  find  a  similar  notion 
of  sacrifice  in  the  case  which  I  quoted  from 
Professor  Sayce.  We  may  suppose  the  father 
to  be  concealed,  and  his  sin  covered,  by  the  child 
given  in  ransom ;  in  the  sense  that  when  the 
angry  divinity  looked  at  him  only  the  child  would 
be  seen,  and  at  the  sight  of  this  anger  would  be 
changed  to  pleasure. 

I  must  add  that  I  know  too  little  of  the  early 
people  referred  to,  to  express  an  opinion  as  to 
their  ideas  of  sacrifice.     I  merely  urge  that  the 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  33 

phraseology  of  the  passage  quoted  does  not  seem 
to  me  to  require  the  notion  of  formal  substitu- 
tion of  a  vicarious  object  of  the  divine  wrath,  or 
even  most  naturally  to  suggest  it  on  a  careful 
scrutiny  of  the  case. 

Certain  Qualifications. 

I  have  spoken  as  if  the  sacrifices  were  simply 
gifts  to  the  gods.  To  this  position  certain  qual- 
ifications are  to  be  made.  These  are,  however, 
of  a  nature  to  confirm  the  results  which  have 
been  reached,  so  far  as  the  idea  of  penal  substi- 
tution is  concerned. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  interesting 
theory  put  forward  by  W.  Robertson  Smith  in 
his  work  entitled  "The  Religion  of  the  Sem- 
ites." This  is  to  the  effect  that  in  the  early  his- 
tory of  the  Semites  the  sacrifice  was  designed  to 
refresh,  or  intensify,  in  the  divinity  the  sense  of 
tribal  relationship.  The  Deity  was  a  tribal  De- 
ity ;  the  animal  offered  also  belonged  to  the 
tribe.  By  sharing  his  flesh  or  by  being  smeared 
with  his  blood,  the  divinity  and  the  members  of 
the  tribe  were  brought  into  fresh  relationship. 
It  would  be  foreign  to  our  present  purpose  to 
discuss  this  view,  which  I  understand  that  Dr. 


34  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Smith  would  extend  also  to  non-Semitic  races. 
So  far  as  it  is  accepted,  it  would  obviously  take 
the  place  of  the  substitutionary  notion  of  sacri- 
fice. 

Another  consideration  to  be  noticed  is  the  fact 
that  religious  rites  tend  to  lose  their  significance, 
and  to  become  merely  formal.  This  is  what  I 
understand  Tylor  to  mean  by  the  statement  that 
in  the  development  of  the  sacrificial  idea  the  no- 
tion of  homage  to  the  divinity  comes  to  take  the 
place  of  the  notion  of  a  gift.^  An  illustration  of 
this  may  be  found  in  the  manner  in  which  the 
Lord's  prayer  has  been  used  as  a  charm,  without 
regard  to  the  meaning  of  the  petition.  A  simi- 
lar use  is  made  of  religious  literature  by  other 
peoples,  as  by  the  Parsis,  by  whom  it  was  consid- 
ered a  merit  to  have  scripture  read  by  a  priest, 
even  in  the  absence  of  the  person  employing 
him,  and  in  the  case  of  the  so-called  "prayer 
wheels"  of  the  Buddhists.  It  is  possible  that 
in  the  case  of  the  dances  referred  to  above,  those 
taking  part  in  the  service  could  explain  as  little 
as  we  the  real  significance  or  origin  of  the  cere- 
mony. Indeed,  the  attention  to  the  minutest 
element  of  form  in  the  ritual,  and  the  sense  of 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Cultwe,  i.  376. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE,  35 

peril  if  the  smallest  element  were  omitted  or 
modified,  show  how  traditional  the  whole  thing 
had  become,  and  how  little  the  original  signifi- 
cance of  the  service  was  considered.  It  is  hardly 
to  be  questioned  that  the  sacrifice  and  the  use  of 
blood  as  a  means  of  purification  came  to  be  re- 
garded, to  some  extent,  in  the  same  formal  and 
traditional  manner.  At  least  there  must  have 
been  a  tendency  to  the  simple  perfunctory  use  of 
such  methods  of  winning  the  divine  favor.  Those 
by  whom  the  gods  were  conceived  in  too  spirit- 
ual a  fashion  to  admit  of  the  earlier  and  grosser 
notions  of  sacrifice  might  still  feel  obliged  to 
perform  them  according  to  the  customary  rou- 
tine of  worship.  We  are  not  left  merely  to  spec- 
ulation in  regard  to  this  matter.  Plato,  in  the 
"  Euthyphro,"  represents  a  pious  Greek  of  his 
time  trying  to  give  an  explanation  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  sacrifice.  He  gives  exactly  that  vague 
sense  of  obligation  that  I  have  just  described. 
"  What  is  the  meaning,"  asks  Socrates,  "  of  gifts 
which  are  conferred  by  us  upon  the  gods } " 
"  What  else,"  answers  Euthyphro,  "  but  tributes 
of  honor,  and,  as  I  was  just  now  saying,  'What 
pleases  them  .?  *  "  ^     This  was  the  faded-out  view 

1  Jowett's  Dialogues  of  Plato  (third  edition),  ii.  92.    The  whole 
passage  is  worth  reading  in  this  connection. 


36  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

of  the  worshipper  at  the  time  of  Plato.  It  is  to 
be  noticed  that  the  earlier  view  which  it  repre- 
sents must  have  been  that  of  gifts,  and  not  at  all 
that  of  transferred  penalty. 

PsetidO' Sacrifices. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  there  were  in  the  an- 
cient world  transactions  which,  regarded  superfi- 
cially, seem  to  be  sacrifices,  but  which,  looked  at 
more  closely,  are  found  to  be  of  a  wholly  differ- 
ent nature.  Such  a  transaction  was  connected 
with  the  feast  of  the  Thargelia  at  Athens.  It 
was  the  custom  that  two  men,  taken  from  the 
refuse  of  the  population,  after  having  been  kept 
for  a  time  at  the  public  expense,  should  be  put  to 
death  in  connection  with  this  feast.  The  man- 
ner in  which  this  was  done  was  very  striking. 
One  of  the  men  was  held  to  represent  the  men 
of  the  city,  the  other  the  women.  The  one  that 
represented  the  men  was  adorned  with  strings  of 
black  figs  ;  the  one  that  represented  the  women 
was  adorned  with  white  figs.  They  were  driven 
out  of  the  city  to  the  music  of  flutes  that  played 
an  air  which  was  reserved  for  this  use.  They 
were  pursued  by  the  multitude,  who  beat  them 
with  switches  from  the  fig-tree  which  gave  the 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  37 

name  to  the  air  to  which  they  marched,  and  who, 
as  it  is  sometimes  said,^  pelted  them  with  figs 
and  other  objects.     They  were  finally  burned  or 
cast  into  the  sea.^   This  at  first  sight  might  seem 
to  be  of  the  nature  of  a  sacrifice,  and  indeed  it  is 
generally  spoken  of  as  such.     These  men  might 
easily  be  regarded  as  bearing  the  penalty  of  the 
sins  of  the   city,  and  suffering  the  punishment 
which  was  due  to  all  from  the  offended   gods. 
One  or  two  things,  however,  seem  inconsistent 
with  this  view.     We  wonder  to  see  them  taken 
from  the  lowest  class  of  the  people,  so  that  they 
are   represented   as   giving  in  their  appearance 
such  an  impression  of  wretchedness  that  the  very 
name  by  which  they  were   called,  ^ap/iaKoi,  be- 
came an  expression  for  this  sort  of  abjectness.^ 
The  manner  in  which  they  were  driven  out  of 
the  city  does  not  at  all  suggest  a  sacrifice.     The 
thing  might  have  remained  a  complete  mystery, 
if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  the  same  rite  was 
performed  at  other  places.     In  the  account  of  its 
performance  at  Massilia  the  whole  matter  is  made 
clear.     We  are  told  that  at  any  time  of  pestilence 

1  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Antiquities. 

2  Hermann,  Lehrbuch  der  gottesdienstlichen  Alterthiimer  der 
Griechen,  p.  415. 

8  Cf.  Aristophanes,  The  Frogs,  733,  etc. 


38  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

the  custom  there  was  to  select  a  poor  man,  to 
nourish  him  for  a  year  at  the  public  expense, 
then  to  adorn  him  with  garlands  and  festal  robes, 
to  lead  him  through  the  city  with  curses,  so  that 
the  evils  of  the  whole  city  might  fall  upon  him,^ 
and  then  to  cast  him  into  the  sea.  The  thing 
now  becomes  plain.  The  man  was  laden,  not 
with  the  sins,  but  with  the  sufferings  of  the  peo- 
ple. We  have  in  a  concrete  form  a  kind  of  dis- 
position of  the  evils  of  life  which  had  long  and 
widely  been  a  favorite  one,  namely,  to  send  them 
somewhere  else.  As  far  back  as  the  time  of  the 
Atharva  Veda  this  expedient  was  adopted.  The 
Vedic  singers  were  in  the  habit  of  sending  their 
sicknesses  and  other  calamities  to  the  peoples  of 
the  mountains  or  other  strange  regions.  In  Hor- 
ace we  find  an  echo  of  the  same.  Speaking  of 
Apollo,  he  says  :  — 

"  Hie  bellum  lacrimosum,  hie  miseram  famem 
Pestemque  a  populo  et  principe  Caesare  in 
Persas  atque  Britannos 
Vestra  motus  aget  prece."  ^ 

I  suppose  that  the  object  of  having  the  victims 
at  the  Thargelia  nourished  a  fixed  time  at  the 

1  Lion's    Servii   Commentarius    in    Virgilii  ^neidos,   iii.  57. 
*'  Ut  in  ipsum  reeiderent  mala  totius  civitatis." 

2  Odes,  i.  21. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  39 

public  charge  was  that  they  might  be  thoroughly 
identified  with  the  city. 

We  see  examples  of  the  same  concrete  form  of 
accomplishing  this  transfer  among  the  Hebrews, 
in  the  case  of  the  goat  that  bore  away  the  sins 
of  the  people/  and  the  bird  that  was  supposed, 
so  it  would  appear,  to  fly  away  with  the  leprosy 
of  a  sufferer  who  fulfilled  the  proper  rites.^  Dr. 
Smith  speaks  of  an  Arabian  custom,  according 
to  which  a  widow,  before  remarriage,  makes  a 
bird  fly  away  with  the  uncleanness  of  her  wid- 
owhood.^ I  recall  a  remnant  of  the  same  idea 
of  transferrence  in  my  boyhood  in  the  belief 
that  a  wart  could  be  removed  from  the  hand  of 
one  person  to  that  of  another.  In  the  case  of 
those  wretches  who  suffered  for  the  city,  the 
idea  is  obviously  that  the  evils  with  which  they 
were  laden  should  be  burned  or  cast  into  the  sea 
with  them. 

It  is  true  that  the  gods  often  punished  the 
innocent  for  the  sins  of  the  guilty.  Descendants 
suffered  for  the  sins  of  their  ancestors.  The 
city  or  the  nation  suffered  often  for  the  guilt 
of  a  citizen.     One  person  might  die  for  another, 

1  Leviticus  xvi.  21.  2  Jbid..,  xiv.  7. 

8  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  402. 


40  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

as  in  the  case  of  Alcestis  and  Admetus  ;  but  I 
find  no  reason  to  believe  that  this  ever  took  the 
form  of  sacrifice.  This  rite  would  seem  to  have 
been  regarded  as  a  means  of  removing  rather 
than  of  satisfying  the  divine  wrath.  It  is  not 
essential  to  my  purpose,  indeed,  to  insist  that 
the  vicarious  penal  significance  was  never  at- 
tached to  sacrifice,  though  this  is  what  I  believe. 
I  merely  wish  to  show  that  if  this  ever  occurred, 
it  happened  too  rarely  to  affect  the  general  mean- 
ing of  the  rite. 

II.    Sacrifices  among  the  HEBRE\ys. 
General  Considerations. 

I  have  thus  considered  briefly  certain  aspects 
of  sacrifice  in  general,  reserving  for  special  con- 
sideration the  ideas  which  were  held  in  regard  to 
sacrifice  among  the  Hebrew  people.  Obviously, 
the  Hebrew  view  of  sacrifice  is  all  that  directly 
concerns  us  here.  By  those,  however,  who  have 
maintained  that  the  vicarious  penal  view  of  sac- 
rificial rites  prevailed  among  the  Hebrews,  it 
has  been  generally  held  that  this  was  nothing 
exceptional,  but  that  it  was  the  significance  of 
sacrifice  the  world  over.     If,  however,  we  find 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  4 1 

that  this  was  not  the  general  meaning  of  the  rite, 
it  does  not  follow  that  it  may  not  have  been  its 
significance  among  the  Hebrews. 

Comparative  religion  is,  as  its  name  implies,  a 
science  of  comparison.  Just  so  far  as  any  one 
people  is  unlike  others  must  the  facts  furnished 
by  its  history  be  taken  into  the  sum  of  facts  upon 
which  the  study  of  comparative  religion  is  based. 
Comparative  religion  does  nothing  more  than 
furnish  a  presumption  with  which  any  special 
religion  should  be  approached.  If  this  presump- 
tion, in  the  case  of  any  special  religion,  finds 
itself  in  the  presence  of  facts  with  which  it  is 
inconsistent,  it  must  be  given  up. 

If  one  is  beginning  the  study  of  Buddhism,  for 
instance,  knowledge  in  regard  to  other  religions 
furnishes  the  presumption  that  it  is  theistic.  As 
soon,  however,  as  an  examination  of  the  sacred 
books  shows  that  it  is  in  a  profound  sense  athe- 
istic, this  presumption  is  to  be  surrendered.  It 
is  unscientific  and  irrational  to  hold,  as  do  most 
popular  writers  upon  the  subject,  that  Buddhism 
is  theistic  because  we  have  a  right  to  expect  it 
to  be  theistic.  Science  advances  by  willingness 
to  give  up  the  best  supported  expectation  in  the 
face  of  facts  as  truly  as  it  does  by  using  analo- 


42  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

gies  taken  from  the  experiences  of  one  people  to 
explain  those  of  another. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  in  any  special  religion 
this  presumption  finds  nothing  to  oppose  it,  then 
it  may  be  safely  used  as  at  least  a  working  hy- 
pothesis, in  the  attempt  to  explain  the  facts  which 
this  religion  offers.  It  should  certainly  hold  its 
own  against  any  other  explanation  that  is  not 
forced  upon  us  by  the  facts  themselves. 

To  come  to  the  case  in  hand,  the  sacrificial 
rites  of  other  peoples,  so  far  as  they  are  known 
to  us,  are  rarely,  I  believe  never,  based  upon  the 
notion  that  the  victim  bears  the  penalty  of  the 
worshipper,  and  suffers  from  the  wrath  of  the 
divinity  which  is  thus  deflected  from  its  original 
object.  The  overwhelming  evidence  of  the  ab- 
sence of  this  element,  so  far  as  sacrifices  in  gen- 
eral are  concerned,  would  lead  us  to  assume  that 
it  did  not  enter  into  the  signification  of  sac- 
rifices among  the  Hebrews,  unless  the  Hebrew 
scriptures  themselves  contain  statements  which 
contradict  this  assumption.  If  there  were  in  the 
Old  Testament  a  single  expression  that  could 
legitimately  support  the  hypothesis  that  the 
sacrificial  victim  served  as  a  substitute,  actually 
or  symbolically,  for  the  offerer,  bearing  in  his 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  43 

stead  the  penalty  that  was  his  due,  then  this  re- 
ligion would  be  welcomed  with  scientific  interest 
as  offering  a  type  of  religion  as  unlike  others  in 
this  respect  as  Buddhism  is  unlike  others  in  re- 
spect to  theism. 

In  point  of  fact,  so  far  as  the  general  sacrificial 
rites  are  concerned,  we  find  no  such  expression. 
We  do  find,  on  the  contrary,  indications  that 
preclude  such  an  interpretation.  Thus  the  study 
of  the  sacrifices  of  other  peoples  becomes  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  study  of  the  sacrifices  of 
Hebrews.  - 

The  Fiftieth  Psalm. 

Among  the  passages  that  indicate  the  signif- 
icance which  was  attached  to  sacrificial  rites  by 
the  Hebrews,  the  fiftieth  psalm  is  of  the  first 
importance.  Occurring  as  it  does  in  what  may 
be  loosely  considered  the  central  period  of  He- 
brew history,  it  throws  great  light  upon  the 
Hebrew  habits  of  thought.  It  leaves  no  doubt 
as  to  what  were  at  the  time  the  principles  that 
were  supposed  to  underlie  sacrificial  rites.  The 
writer  of  the  psalm  represents  Yahwe  as  angry 
with  his  people  and  protesting  against  the  sacri- 
fices that  they  offered  him.  He  is  represented 
as  saying  to  them,  — 


44  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

"  I  will  take  no  bullock  out  of  thy  house, 
Nor  he-goats  out  of  thy  folds. 
For  every  beast  of  the  forest  is  mine, 
And  the  cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills. 
I  know  all  the  fowls  of  the  mountains  : 
And  the  wild  beasts  of  the  field  are  mine. 
If  I  were  hungry,  I  would  not  tell  thee : 
For  the  world  is  mine,  and  the  fulness  thereof. 
Will  I  eat  the  flesh  of  bulls. 
Or  drink  the  blood  of  goats  ? "  ^ 

In  these  verses  we  have  presented  a  distinct 
view  of  the  signification  of  animal  sacrifices ;  and 
it  is  precisely  in  accord  with  the  view  which  we 
have  found  to  be  taken  by  other  peoples.  The 
sacrificial  victim  is  represented  as  being  a  gift  to 
God;  a  gift,  moreover,  of  flesh  which  He  is  sup- 
posed to  eat,  and  of  blood  which  He  is  supposed 
to  drink.  There  is  brought  before  us  the  most 
interesting  moment  in  the  history  of  the  people, 
—  a  moment  in  which  there  was  a  conflict  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new.  The  idea  of  the 
divinity  had  become  so  spiritualized  and  magni- 
fied that  the  old  form  of  service  no  longer  seemed 
to  fit  Him.  A  kind  of  gift  which  had  appeared 
most  appropriate  to  a  divinity  conceived  of  as 
having  limitations  and  needs  similar  to  those  of 

1  Psalm  1.  9-13. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  45 

men,  and  who  was  considered  to  be  in  a  sense 
and  to  a  certain  degree  dependent  upon  men 
for  the  satisfaction  of  these  needs,  had  become 
wholly  inappropriate  when  the  divinity  was  con- 
sidered to  be  a  spiritual  being,  the  Creator  and 
Lord  of  the  whole  earth. 

We  need  not  take  this  psalm  as  describing  what 
had  been  the  significance  of  Hebrew  sacrifice 
from  the  beginning.  There  may  have  been  a 
time  when,  as  urged  by  Professor  W.  Robertson 
Smith,  the  sacrifice  was  intended  to  emphasize 
the  tribal  relationship  between  the  divinity  and 
his  special  people.  This  time  had  passed,  as 
Dr.  Smith  himself  insists,  at  the  time  when 
this  psalm  was  written.  It  does  represent,  how- 
ever, the  view  of  sacrifice  which  had  at  least  be- 
come the  prevailing  one,  and  which  at  the  time 
had  given  place  to  no  other. 

We  may  admit,  further,  that  the  psalm  may 
have  put  the  matter  in  a  somewhat  grosser  form 
than  was  generally  recognized  at  the  time  of  its 
composition.  In  an  utterance  of  indignant  pro- 
test we  may  expect  to  find  exaggeration,  possibly 
even  caricature.  The  sacrifices  may  have  been 
made  in  a  vague  ritualistic  sense,  as  we  have  seen 
was  the  case  am6ng  the  Greeks,^  with  no  distinct 

UNIVEESITl 


46  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

thought  that  Yahwe  really  ate  the  flesh  or  drank 
the  blood.  Making  thus  all  possible  deductions, 
reasonable  and  unreasonable,  from  the  historical 
truth  of  the  picture,  certain  things  remain  evi- 
dent. One  is  that  the  view  represented  in  the 
psalm  was  one  that  had  prevailed  among  the  He- 
brew people.  Another  is  that  no  different  view 
had  taken  its  place.  This  may  have  lost  some- 
thing of  its  distinctness  ;  but  any  change  that  had 
occurred  must  have  been  in  the  direction  of  such 
a  fading  out  rather  than  of  a  transformation.  In 
the  light  of  this  psalm,  it  is  perfectly  impossible 
that  there  should  have  been  held  a  view  so  wholly 
different  as  that  which  regards  the  sacrificial 
victim  as  bearing  the  penalty  of  sin  in  the  place 
of  the  worshipper.  If  this  view  had  prevailed 
to  any  extent,  the  impassioned  utterance  of  the 
psalm  would  have  been  wholly  out  of  place. 
Even  a  caricature  must  represent,  in  some  de- 
gree, the  true  outline  of  that  to  which  it  refers, 
and  not  present  something  wholly  foreign  and 
unlike.  To  those  who  believe  that  one  view 
existed  during  the  whole  Hebrew  history ;  that 
the  Old  Testament  presents  at  every  point  the 
same  general  ideas,  and  is  never  fundamentally  in 
contradiction  with  itself ;  to  tho^e  especially  who 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  47 

believe  that  the  Pentateuch  was  the  work  of 
Moses,  and  that  accordingly  the  book  of  Leviti- 
cus was  completed  before  the  Psalms  were  writ- 
ten, this  psalm,  taken  by  itself,  ought  to  be  suffi- 
cient to  decide  the  question. 

"  The  Bread  of  Godr 

The  view  of  sacrifices  implied  by  the  fiftieth 
psalm  may  be  further  illustrated  by  the  fact  that 
in  certain  passages  in  the  Pentateuch  the  sacrifi- 
cial victim  is  spoken  of  as  the  food,  or,  as  the 
translation  puts  it,  the  bread,  of  God.  One  of 
the  most  marked  of  these  is  found  in  the  twenty- 
second  chapter  of  the  book  of  Leviticus.  The 
writer  had  been  insisting  that  in  the  fulfilment 
of  vows,  beeves  or  sheep  that  were  without  blem- 
ish should  alone  be  accepted.  He  had  specified 
blemishes  that  unfitted  an  animal  for  this  use. 
He  proceeds :  "  Neither  from  the  hand  of  a  for- 
eigner shall  ye  offer  the  bread  of  your  God  of 
any  of  these  ;  because  their  corruption  is  in 
them,  there  is  a  blemish  in  them."^  It  is  evi- 
dent in  this  passage  that  the  term  bread,  or  food, 
of  God  refers  to  the  animals  offered. 

1  Leviticus  xxii.  25.  Compare  also  Leviticus  xxi.  6,  8,  17,  and 
21,  Numbers  xxviii.  2. 


48  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

In  Lange's  Commentary  it  is  said  of  this  ex- 
pression, "  the  bread  "  or  *'  the  food  "  of  God,  that 
**  it  is  used  only  of  the  portions  of  the  victim 
burned  upon  the  altar,  and  is  expressly  distin- 
guished from  the  portion  eaten  by  the  priest. 
(Leviticus  xxi.  22.)  By  a  natural  figure,  the  whole 
victim  being  food,  the  part  of  it  given  to  Jeho- 
vah by  burning  upon  the  altar  is  called  the  food 
of  Jehovah,  and  shows  the  communion  between 
him  and  the  worshipper  brought  about  by  the 
sacrifice."  ^  This  explanation  could  not  at  all 
apply  to  the  passage  just  quoted,  in  which  the 
whole  animal  is  spoken  of  as  the  "  bread  of 
God."  Indeed,  the  passage  to  which  reference 
is  made  by  Lange  in  the  above  extract  from  his 
Commentary  tells  against  rather  than  in  favor 
of  his  explanation.  The  passage  reads,  "  He 
shall  eat  the  bread  of  his  God."  Here,  so  far 
from  a  part  of  the  food  of  the  priest  being  given 
to  the  Lord,  the  priest  partakes  of  the  food  of 
God.  Indeed,  the  expression  "  a  sweet  savour 
unto  the  Lord,"  ^  which  is  so  frequently  used  in 
regard  to  the  sacrifice,  expresses  a  similar  view 
of  the  rite  in  a  form  hardly  less  gross. 

1  Lange's  Commentary,  Leviticus  iii.  ii. 

2  Numbers  xv.  3,  et passim. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  49 

The  expressions  "  food  "  or  *'  bread  of  God  " 
and  "  a  sweet  savour  unto  the  Lord,"  as  we  find 
them  in  the  Old  Testament,  were  very  probably 
traditional  ones,  and  I  do  not  insist  that  they 
must  be  taken  in  their  literal  sense.  Obviously, 
however,  they  could  never  have  been  used,  if  the 
sacrificial  victim  had  been,  or  was,  regarded  as 
the  vicarious  victim  of  God's  wrath. ^ 

Substitutes  for  Animal  Sacrifices. 

If  the  sacrifice  of  animals  had  its  distinctive 
significance  in  the  idea  that  the  animal  suffered 
vicariously  the  punishment  due  to  the  sacrificer, 
it  is  clear  that  nothing  could  take  its  place.  We 
find,  in  fact,  such  substitution  in  the  case  of  the 
trespass  offerings.  The  trespasses  for  which 
these  offerings  were  made  were  regarded  as  real 
sins  ;  the  sacrifices  were  called  sin  offerings  ;  yet 
in  them  the  animal  might,  under  certain  circum- 
stances, be  replaced  by  flour.  Thus,  we  read : 
"And  it  shall  be,  when  he  shall  be  guilty  in 
one  of  these  things,  that  he  shall  confess  that 
wherein  he  hath  sinned."  ^     It  is  thus  evident 

1  For  a  suggestion  in  regard  to  the  Hebrew  idea  of  the  sin 
being  covered  by  the  sacrifice,  see  p.  32. 

2  Leviticus  v.  5. 


50  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

that  the  person  referred  to  was  regarded  as 
really  sinful,  and  as  needing  atonement.  The 
first  direction  is  that  he  shall  bring  a  lamb  or 
a  kid  for  a  sin  offering.  Then,  if  he  is  not  able 
to  bring  a  lamb,  it  is  stated  that  he  may  bring 
two  turtle-doves  or  two  young  pigeons.  If,  how- 
ever, he  is  not  able  to  bring  two  turtle-doves 
or  two  young  pigeons,  then  "he  shall  bring  his 
oblation  for  that  wherein  he  hath  sinned,  the 
tenth  part  of  an  ephah  of  fine  flour  for  a  sin 
offering ;  he  shall  put  no  oil  upon  it,  neither 
shall  he  put  any  frankincense  thereon  :  for  it  is 
a  sin  offering."  ^ 

We  have  here  sin  offerings  becoming  gradually 
less  in  value  according  to  the  means  of  the  per- 
son who  had  sinned.  The  passage  is  extremely 
instructive,  for  in  it  we  have  the  sin  offering 
reduced  to  its  lowest  terms.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  essential  element  of  the  rite  was 
preserved  in  its  most  attenuated  form.  Every- 
thing else  might  be  dispensed  with,  but  that 
which  gave  to  the  offering  its  efficacy  could  not 
have  been  left  out.  When  as  a  student  I  attended 
lectures  on  electricity,  the  professor,  who  was  a 
most  skilful  teacher,  began  his  exposition  with 

1  Leviticus  v.  ii. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  5  I 

a  series  of  experiments  with  little  balls  of  pith. 
He  stated  that  with  these  we  saw  the  electrical 
phenomena  in  their  absolute  simplicity  without 
any  adventitious  circumstances.  The  essence  of 
the  whole  thing  was  there,  and  nothing  else. 
The  passage  that  I  just  quoted  reminds  me  irre- 
sistibly of  these  pith-balls.  In  the  ephah  of  fine 
flour  we  have  the  sin  offering  in  its  simplest  and 
barest  form.  What  is  obvious  is  that  blood  and 
the  death  of  a  living  victim  are  not  required. 
These  elements  have  been  cast  aside  as  some- 
thing foreign  to  the  essential  nature  of  the  trans- 
action. 

In  connection  with  this  substitution  of  flour 
for  an  animal,  in  certain  sin  offerings,  reference 
may  be  made  to  the  fact  that  in  the  later  Juda- 
ism sacrifices  were  by  many  held  to  be  of  small 
account  when  compared  with  the  study  of  the 
law.i  If  animal  sacrifices  had  been  supposed  to 
remove  guilt  in  the  manner  that  Christian  theo- 
logians have  so  often  imagined,  they  would  have 
been  so  unique  that  nothing  could  have  replaced 
them. 

1  Weber's  System  der  PcUdstinischen  Theologie,  pp.  38  ff. 


52  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

The  Day  of  Atonement. 

Another  passage  which  is  extremely  impor- 
tant in  this  discussion  is  the  one  that  describes 
the  ceremonies  connected  with  what  was  for- 
merly known  as  the  "  scapegoat."  It  is  too  fa- 
miliar to  need  more  than  a  general  reference. 
Two  goats  were  taken,  and  by  lot  one  was  se- 
lected for  the  Lord,  and  the  other  for  the  "  scape- 
goat." That  which  was  to  be  taken  for  the  Lord 
was  to  be  killed  as  a  sin  offering  for  the  people, 
and  its  blood  was  to  be  sprinkled  upon  the  mercy- 
seat  and  before  the  mercy-seat.  When  these 
and  kindred  ceremonies  had  been  accomplished, 
the  live  goat  was  taken.  Aaron,  it  is  said,  "  shall 
lay  both  his  hands  upon  the  head  of  the  live 
goat,  and  confess  over  him  all  the  iniquities  of 
the  children  of  Israel,  and  all  their  transgressions, 
even  all  their  sins  ;  and  he  shall  put  them  upon 
the  head  of  the  goat,  and  shall  send  him  away 
by  the  hand  of  a  man  that  is  in  readiness  into 
the  wilderness  :  and  the  goat  shall  bear  upon 
him  all  their  iniquities  unto  a  solitary  land."  ^ 

The  importance  of  this  passage  for  our  pres- 
ent purpose  is  found  in  the  contrast  in  the  treat- 

1  Leviticus  xvi.  21,  22. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  53 

ment  of  these  two  goats.  One  is  offered  to  the 
Lord  as  a  sin  offering.  Not  upon  its  head,  but 
upon  the  head  of  the  other,  all  the  sins  of  the 
children  of  Israel  were  placed,  and  this  other 
was  to  bear  them  far  away.  It  could  not  have 
been  by  accident  that  the  sins  were  placed  upon 
his  head  only.  According  to  the  popular  view 
of  the  transaction,  the  sins  should  have  been 
placed  upon  the  head  of  the  goat  which  was  the 
sin  offering.  Even  Dr.  Dale,  in  his  interesting 
work  on  the  Atonement,  indulges,  in  this  matter, 
in  what  seems  to  me  a  sort  of  hocus-pocus.  He 
rubs  the  heads  of  the  two  goats  together,  as  it 
were ;  and  when  the  process  is  completed,  the 
sins  of  the  people  are  found  adhering  to  them 
both,  or  rather  they  have  been  transferred  from 
the  head  of  the  "  scapegoat  "  to  the  goat  of  the 
Lord.  This  latter  pays  the  penalty  for  them  by 
his  death.  There  is  really  nothing  left  for  the 
"  scapegoat  "  to  do  but  to  carry  away  a  pale  and 
empty  simulacrum  of  the  sins  which,  according 
to  the  account,  had  been  put  in  solid  substance 
upon  him.  Crcf^rded  out  of  his  proper  function, 
he  is  led  away,  carrying  only  a  symbol  instead  of 
a  fact  to  Azazel.^ 

^  Dr.  Dale's  language  is :  "  It  is  expressly^said  that  the  two 


54  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Dr.  Cave  insists  that  the  notion,  so  generally- 
held,  that  the  placing  the  hand  on  the  head  of 
the  sacrificial  victim  "  signified,  at  every  time 
and  in  every  place,  the  transferrence  of  sinful- 
ness "  is  "  unscriptural  and  contradictory."  He 
says  :  "  If  the  victim,  for  example,  carry  the  sins 
of  the  offerer,  how  can  that  sacrifice  be  termed, 
as  it  so  often  is,  '  holy,'  *  most  holy '  }  How  can 
its  blood  be  sprinkled  upon  the  altar,  the  dwell- 
ing-place of  God  1  The  principal  argument  re- 
lied on  to  prove  that  imposition  was  symbolical 
of  the  transfer  of  guilt  is  that  on  the  Day  of 
Atonement  the  high  priest  laid  his  hand  upon 
the  head  of  the  goat  which  was  not  slaughtered, 
thus  placing  upon  it  the  sins  of  the  people.  But 
the  cases  are  not  analogous.     It  is  forgotten  that 

goats  constituted  the  sin  offering ;  they  cannot  be  severed.  The 
one  is  sent  off  into  the  wilderness  as  a  visible  sign  that  the  sins 
confessed  over  him  are  utterly  removed,  because  the  other  has 
first  been  put  to  death." 

The  italics  are  my  own.  The  words  so  marked  indicate  what 
I  have  called,  I  hope  not  too  irreverently,  the  rubbing  of  the 
heads  of  the  two  goats  together,  so  that  the  sins  that  were  laid 
upon  the  one  should  become  attached  to  4he  other.  They  can- 
not, indeed,  be  separated ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  no 
right  to  disregard  the  careful  statements  of  the  original,  and  to 
confound  functions  between  which  the  Bible  is  so  careful  to  dis- 
tinguish. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  55 

before  *  this  undoubted  act  of  transferrence  of 
guilt,'  the  hand  of  the  priest  had  been  already 
laid  upon  the  head  of  the  slaughtered  goat.  If 
that  first  act  of  imposition  —  which  alone  paral- 
leled the  common  sacrificial  rite  —  signified  the 
transferrence  of  the  guilt  of  the  people,  how  came 
it  that  those  sins  still  remained  upon  the  people, 
and  could  be  placed  a  second  time  upon  the  head 
of  the  second  goat  ?"  ^  This  reasoning  seems  to 
me  wholly  unanswerable. 

The  Blood  of  the  Sacrifice. 

According  to  the  Hebrew  law,  the  blood  was 
in  a*  special  sense  sacred.  It  must  not  be  par- 
taken of  by  man,  for  God  had  reserved  it  for  him- 
self. The  reason  assigned  for  this  devotion  of 
the  blood  to  divine  use  is,  that  "the  life  of  the 
flesh  is  in  the  blood."  ^  It  is  possible  that  we 
have  in  this  an  adaptation  of  sacrifice  to  the 
more  refined  views  of  a  people  for  whom  the 
sacrifice  could  be  no  longer  in  any  gross  and  lit- 
eral sense  the  "food  of  God."  The  gift  was  no 
longer  of  the  material  elements,  but  of  the  life 

1  The  Scriptural  Doctrine  of  Sacrifice,  by  Alfred  Cave,  D.  D., 
pp.  129,  130,  note. 

2  Leviticus  xvii.  11. 


56  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

which  manifests  itself  through  them.    Life  might 

be  an  acceptable  offering  to  the  living  God  ;  but 

the  life  could  be  offered  only  in  the  blood,  in 

which  in  a  special  manner  it  inhered. 

In  the  passage  just  quoted  from  Dr.  Cave  we 

see   how   inappropriate   was   the    sprinkling    of 

blood  upon  the  altar,  if  the  victim  carried  the 

sins   of   the   offerer.     From    a  wholly  different 

point  of  view,  Dr.  Schmoller  calls  attention  to 

the  fact  that  the  blood  of  the  sacrifice  was  used 

to  purify  things  that  had  committed  no  sin,  as 

the  altar  and  the  vessels  of  the  temple.^     If  the 

victim  was  efficacious  because  it  bore  the  sins 

of  man,  and  in  his  stead  was  smitten  by  God's 

wrath,  in  what  sense  could  it  be  used  to  purify 

things  that  were  by  nature  innocent,  if  even  the 

term   "  innocence "   can  be  applied   to   material 

things  } 

'  Pseudo  Sacrifices. 

By  pseudo-sacrifices  I  mean,  as  in  the  earlier 
part  of  this  chapter,,  transactions  that,  superfi- 
cially considered,  suggest  the  sacrificial  idea,  but 
which  are  in  no  true  sense  sacrifices.  Of  these 
the  following  is  a  good  example  :  — 

1  Theologische  Studien  und  Kritiken^  1891,  ii.  230.  The  entire 
article  deserves  careful  reading. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE,  57 

"  If  one  be  found  slain  in  the  land  which  the 
Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee  to  possess  it,  lying  in  the 
field,  and  it  be  not  known  who  hath  smitten  him  : 
then  thy  elders  and  thy  judges  shall  come  forth, 
and  they  shall  measure  unto  the  cities  which 
are  round  about  him  that  is  slain :  and  it  shall  be, 
that  the  city  which  is  nearest  unto  the  slain  man, 
even  the  elders  of  that  city  shall  take  an  heifer 
of  the  herd,  which  hath  not  been  wrought  with, 
and  which  hath  hot  drawn  in  the  yoke  ;  and  the 
elders  of  that  city  shall  bring  down  the  heifer 
unto  a  valley  with  running  water,  which  is  nei- 
ther plowed  nor  sown,  and  shall  break  the  hei- 
fer's neck  there  in  the  valley :  and  the  priests 
the  sons  of  Levi  shall  come  near  ;  for  them  the 
Lord  thy  God  hath  chosen  to  minister  unto  him, 
and  to  bless  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  ;  and  ac- 
cording to  their  word  shall  every  controversy 
and  every  stroke  be :  and  all  the  elders  of  that 
city,  who  are  nearest  unto  the  slain  man,  shall 
wash  their  hands  over  the  heifer  whose  neck  was 
broken  in  the  valley :  and  they  shall  answer  and 
say,  Our  hands  have  not  shed  this  blood,  neither 
have  our  eyes  seen  it.  Forgive,  O  Lord,  thy  peo- 
ple Israel,  whom  thou  hast  redeemed,  and  suffer 


58  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

not  innocent  blood  to  remain  in  the  midst  of  thy 
people  Israel."  ^ 

This  is  obviously  a  civil,  and  not  an  ecclesias- 
tical act.  The  heifer  is  killed,  not  by  the  priests, 
but  by  the  elders  of  the  people. 

The  later  Jews,  at  least,  had  the  idea  of  im- 
puted righteousness.  The  idea  of  vicarious  pen- 
alty was  not  unknown  to  them.^  This  relation, 
however,  did  not  take  the  form  of  a  sacrifice. 

Perhaps  nothing  could  show  more  distinctly 
how  utterly  foreign  the  idea  of  penal  substitu- 
tion was  to  the  sacrificial  rites  than  the  passage 
which  did  more  than  any  other  to  suggest  the 
idea  of  the  possibility  of  such  substitution  to 
the  later  Jews.  In  these  familiar  and  pathetic 
words  we  read  :  — 

"  But  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions, 
he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities:  the  chastise- 
ment of  our  peace  was  upon  him ;  and  with  his 
stripes  we  are  healed. 

"  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray ;  we  have 
turned  every  one  to  his  own  way  ;  and  the  Lord 
hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all. 

"  He  was  oppressed,  yet  he  humbled  himself 

1  Deuteronomy  xxi.  i-8. 

2  Weber's  System  der  Palastinischen  Tkeologie,  p.  313. 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE,  59 

and  opened  not  his  mouth  ;  as  a  lamb  that  is 
led  to  the  slaughter,  and  as  a  sheep  that  before 
her  shearers  is  dumb ;  yea,  he  opened  not  his 
mouth."  1 

Here  we  have  represented  a  vicarious  bearing 
of  the  punishment  for  sin  ;  the  lamb  is  introduced 
to  illustrate  the  patience  of  the  sufferer.  The 
sacrificial  lamb  did  not,  however,  come  into  the 
writer's  mind.  It  is  the  lamb  led  to  slaughter 
and  the  sheep  dumb  before  her  shearers  that  the 
connection  suggests.  One  cannot  help  seeing 
how  widely  the  idea  of  sacrifice  that  was  held  by 
the  prophet  differs  from  that  held  by  many  mod- 
ern theologians. 

III.  The  Early  Christian  View  of  Sacrifice. 

More  important  for  our  purpose  than  the  no- 
tion which  Gentile  or  Jew  held  in  regard  to  sac- 
rifice is  the  idea  held  by  the  early  Christians. 
This  is  important,  because  as  they  conceived  the 
nature  of  sacrifice,  so  they  must  have  understood 
the  sacrificial  language  of  the  New  Testament. 
If  they  attached  no  idea  of  vicarious  penalty  to 
sacrifice  in  general,  they  would  not  associate  such 
substitution  with  the  sacrificial  language  of  Paul. 

1  Isaiah  liii.  5-7. 


60  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

I  have  deemed  this  a  matter  worthy  of  special 
emphasis,  though  I  shall  offer  but  one  bit  of  tes- 
timony in  regard  to  it.  This  seems  to  me  so 
clear  and  definite  that  it  is  in  itself  sufficient. 
The  testimony  that  I  offer  is  from  "  The  Epistle 
to  Diognetus,"  which  is  included  among  the 
writings  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers.  Bishop  Light- 
foot  believes  this  epistle  to  have  been  written 
about  the  year  150  a.  d.  The  passage  shows 
that  the  writer  did  not  regard  the  victims  sacri- 
ficed either  by  the  Jew  or  the  Greek  as  substi- 
tuted objects  of  the  divine  wrath,  but  as  gifts 
to  the  divinity.  It  will  be  seen  that  he  takes 
up  the  matter  where  the  writer  of  the  Fiftieth 
Psalm  had  left  it.  This  implies  that  no  differ- 
ent view  had  prevailed  between  the  two  utter- 
ances. The  writer  had  been  speaking  of  the 
offerings  made  by  the  Greeks  to  their  idols.  He 
proceeds  :  — 

"  For  whereas  the  Greeks,  by  offering  these 
things  to  senseless  and  deaf  images,  make  an 
exhibition  of  stupidity,  the  Jews,  considering  that 
they  are  presenting  them  to  God,  as  if  He  were 
in  need  of  them,  ought  in  all  reason  to  count  it 
folly,  and  not  religious  worship.  For  He  that 
made  the  heaven  and  the  earth  and  all  things 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  6 1 

that  are  therein,  and  furnisheth  us  all  with  what 
we  need,  cannot  himself  need  any  of  these  things 
which  He  himself  supplieth  to  them  that  imag- 
ine that  they  are  giving  them  to  him.  But  those 
who  think  to  perform  sacrifices  to  Him  with 
blood  and  fat  and  whole  burnt  offerings,  and  to 
honour  him  with  such  honours,  seem  to  me  in  no 
way  different  from  those  who  show  the  same 
respect  towards  deaf  images  ;  for  the  one  class 
think  fit  to  make  offerings  to  things  unable  to 
participate  in  the  honour,  the  other  class  to  One 
who  is  in  need  of  nothing."  ^ 

IV.    Conclusion. 

The  object  of  this  examination  of  the  nature 
of  sacrifice  and  the  ideas  that  were  associated 
with  it  in  the  minds  of  the  worshippers  who 
made  use  of  it,  has  been  to  determine  just  what 
signification  we  should  attach  to  the  sacrificial 
language  of  the  New  Testament.  Before  seeing 
what  special  explanation  of  this  phraseology  the 
New  Testament  itself  offers,  it  is  important  to 
understand  what  meaning  the  terms  would  have 
apart  from  any  such  explanation.     Many  inter- 

1  The  Epistle  to  Diognetus^  section  iii.  The  extract  is  taken 
from  the  translation  by  Bishop  Lightfoot. 


62  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

esting  points  in  connection  with  the  general 
subject  have  been  passed  over,  because  they  do 
not  concern  this  practical  result. 

It  is  obvious,  from  our  examination  of  the  gen- 
eral theme,  that  when  sacrificial  terms  are  ap- 
plied to  the  death  of  Christ  they  imply  that,  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  used  them,  Christ  was 
believed  to  have  accomplished  by  his  death  some- 
thing by  which,  through  faith  in  him,  men  stand 
in  a  different  relation  to  the  divine  Law-giver  or 
to  the  Divine  Law  than  they  would  have  occu- 
pied if  Christ  had  not  died.  To  speak  more  def- 
initely, through  the  death  of  Christ  the  believer 
obtains  remission  of  sins.  Precisely  how  this 
result  is  accomplished  the  sacrificial  terms  do 
not,  taken  by  themselves,  imply.  The  signifi- 
cance of  the  sacrificial  rite  would  seem  to  have 
been  different  at  different  times.  It  is  probable 
that  by  the  later  Jews  it  was  regarded  simply 
as  something  commanded  by  God,  and  therefore 
acceptable  to  Him.  The  mere  fact,  then,  that 
remission  of  sins  is  obtained  through  the  death 
of  Christ  would  be  sufficient  to  justify  the  com- 
parison. Whether  the  death  of  Christ  was  re- 
garded as  having  this  power  merely  because  God 
so  willed  it,  or  whether  there  was  in  the  mind  of 


PRESUMPTION  FROM  SACRIFICE.  6^ 

Paul  some  more  concrete  theory  of  the  matter 
by  which  it  appeared  that  the  death  of  Christ 
must  have  this  power,  is  to  be  learned,  if  at  all, 
from  the  New  Testament  itself. 

Two  ideas,  however,  would  be  excluded  by 
the  very  idea  of  sacrifice,  unless  the  most  posi- 
tive statements  of  the  New  Testament  should 
oblige  us  to  give  to  the  language  an  interpreta- 
tion that  is  foreign  to  it.  One  of  these  ideas 
that  the  terms  naturally  exclude  is  the  notion 
that  men's  sins  are  remitted  simply  because,  by 
the  moral  influence  of  the  death  of  Christ,  their 
characters  have  been  changed.  The  other  idea 
that  the  terms  would  naturally  exclude  is  the 
notion  that  the  sins  of  the  Christian  are  remitted 
because  Christ  has  borne  the  penalty  that  was 
his  due.  Both  these  notions  are  foreign  to  the 
idea  of  sacrifice  as  held  by  Gentile  and  Jew,  and, 
as  we  have  seen  in  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus,  as 
held  by  all  early  Christians. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE    PRESUMPTION    FROM    THE    HISTORY   OF 
DOCTRINE. 

Preliminary  Considerations. 

Besides  the  presumption  in  favor  of  the  vica- 
riously penal  theory  of  the  death  of  Christ  that 
has  rested  on  the  general  notion  of  sacrifice,  there 
has  been  another  and  stronger  presumption  in  its 
favor  that  was  derived  from  the  fact  that  this 
view  had  been  so  long  held  by  the  church. 
Though  all  students  of  the  history  of  doctrine 
have  known  that  its  antiquity  was  not  of  the 
highest,  yet  it  was  ancient  enough  to  be  vener- 
able and  imposing.  Moreover,  it  had  been  so  as- 
sociated with  certain  texts  that  they  seemed  to 
utter  it  distinctly.  I  will  confess  for  myself  that 
even  after  I  had  reached  what  seemed  to  me  the 
true  meaning  of  certain  New  Testament  pas- 
sages, for  a  while,  whenever  I  came  upon  them, 
the  traditional  interpretation  first  suggested  it- 
self.   At  each  time  I  would  have  to  analyze  them 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  65 

afresh,  and  substitute,  by  a  conscious  act,  what 
I  regarded  as  the  true  explanation  in  the  place 
of  the  traditional  one,  until  at  last  the  true  mean- 
ing was  the  only  one  suggested. 

The  authority  of  the  past  is  so  great,  and  the 
associations  that  are  connected  with  it  are  so 
strong,  that  it  is  important  to  ask  what  this  au- 
thority in  the  case  before  us  really  amounts  to. 

The  question  that  we  have  to  consider  is, 
whether  the  circumstances  under  which  the  tra- 
ditional doctrine  arose  and  became  developed  to 
its  full  form  were  such  as  to  give  a  presumption 
of  its  harmony  with  the  teaching  of  the  New 
Testament.  I  hope  to  make  it  appear,  from  the 
brief  review  which  is  all  that  is  here  possible, 
that  the  history  of  the  doctrine  not  only  suggests 
no  presumption  in  favor  of  its  PauHne  origin,  but 
that  it  suggests,  on  the  contrary,  the  presump- 
tion that  it  cannot  represent  the  thought  of 
Paul. 

The  orthodox  church  has  never  doubted  that 
the  death  of  Christ  in  some  way  made  atonement 
for  sin.  This  belief  has  penetrated  to  the  very 
heart  of  the  Christian  consciousness  in  every 
age.  It  is  equally  true  that  at  different  periods 
in  the  history  of  the  church  explanations  have 


66  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

been  given  and  generally  accepted  that  were  to- 
tally at  variance  with  one  another.  To  the 
church,  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  in 
regard  to  this  matter,  taken,  indeed,  in  its  most 
abstract  form  and  with  little  attention  to  details, 
has  been  a  challenge,  summoning  it  to  the  most 
ingenious  speculation.  It  could  not  hold  the 
doctrine  of  justification  through  Christ  without 
attempting  to  give  it  concreteness  and  intelligi- 
bility. Thus  the  most  widely  different  theories 
have  succeeded  one  another,  each  of  which  has 
been  accepted  as  orthodox  in  its  time. 

It  is  noticeable,  further,  that  the  history  of  the 
doctrine  of  justification  has  been  a  development 
of  thought  rather  than  the  result  of  exegetical 
study.  The  idea  of  the  atonement,  taken  in  its 
abstractness,  has  been  a  stimulant  to  speculation. 
The  most  profound  spirits  in  the  Christian  church 
have  questioned  how  it  could  be  possible.  They 
have  suggested  explanations  that  seemed  to  them 
probable,  and  these  have  been  accepted  as  true. 
These  thinkers  did  not  start  out  each  for  him- 
self ;  each  took  the  thought  of  the  church  as  he 
found  it.  The  new  theory  grew  out  of  the  old, 
either  by  a  hardly  noticeable  modification  of  it, 
or  by  a  more  marked  transformation.      It  was, 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  6/ 

thus,  from  the  existing  theory  that  the  new 
thought  started,  and  not  from  the  teaching  of 
the  New  Testament  itself.  I  do  not  mean  that 
the  successive  theories  were  not  influenced  by 
the  New  Testament.  We  see  in  them  the  effect, 
now  of  one  picturesque  text,  and  now  of  another. 
They  do  not,  however,  show  evidence  of  a  care- 
ful, or  at  least  of  a  scientific,  study  of  the  New 
Testament,  carried  on  in  order  to  learn  precisely 
what  it  taught. 

The  Apostolic  Fathers. 

At  first  the  church  was  content  to  repeat  in 
various  forms  the  general  view  of  an  atonement. 
The  following  familiar  extract  from  the  Epistle 
to  Diognetus  is  the  most  important  expression 
in  regard  to  the  subject  that  we  find  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Apostolic  Fathers  :  — 

"And  when  our  iniquity  had  been  fully  accom- 
plished, and  it  had  been  made  perfectly  manifest 
that  punishment  and  death  were  expected  as  its 
recompense,  and  the  season  came  which  God  had 
ordained,  when  henceforth  He  should  manifest 
his  goodness  and  power  (oh,  the  exceeding  great 
kindness  and  love  of  God  !),  He  hated  us  not, 
neither  rejected  us,  nor  bore  us  malice,  but  was 


68  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

long-suffering  and  patient,  and  in  pity  for  us 
took  upon  himself  our  sins,  and  himself  parted 
with  his  own  Son  as  a  ransom  for  us,  the  holy 
for  the  lawless,  the  guileless  for  the  evil,  the  just 
for  the  unjust,  the  incorruptible  for  the  corrup- 
tible, the  immortal  for  the  mortal.  For  what 
else  but  his  righteousness  would  have  covered 
our  sins  ?  In  whom  was  it  possible  for  us  law- 
less and  ungodly  men  to  have  been  justified,  save 
only  in  the  Son  ?  O  the  sweet  exchange,  O  the 
inscrutable  creation,  O  the  unexpected  benefits ; 
that  the  iniquity  of  many  should  be  concealed  in 
One  Righteous  Man,  and  the  righteousness  of 
One  should  justify  many  that  are  iniquitous."  ^ 

If  the  writer  had  a  special  theory  of  the  atone- 
ment, this  passage  certainly  does  not  express  it. 
One  thing  is  obvious,  however,  that  in  his  mind 
the  righteousness  of  Jesus  is  more  prominent 
than  his  death.  Indeed,  the  account  of  the  Jew- 
ish sacrifices  that  I  quoted  a  short  time  ago  from 
this  writer  would  lead  us  to  expect  that  the  the- 
ory of  vicarious  penalty  would  not  be  recognized 
by  him. 

^    The  Epistle  to  Diognetus,  section  ix. ;   from  Bishop  Light- 
foot's  The  Apostolic  Fathers. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  69 

A  Ransom  to  the  Devil. 

Before  the  end  of  the  second  century  a  posi- 
tion was  taken  in  regard  to  the  death  of  Christ 
which  seems  to  us  fantastic  and  absurd,  but 
which  fitted  perfectly  the  thought  of  the  time. 
This  view  is  found  first  in  the  works  of  Irenaeus. 
It  is  to  the  effect  that,  because  men  had  sinned, 
the  devil  had  a  certain  right,  or  at  least  a  certain 
apparent  right,  over  them.  From  this  claim  of 
the  devil  came  death,  which  Paul  himself,  accord- 
ing to  Jewish  usage,  had  spoken  of  as  the  result 
of  sin.  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God,  appeared  in  the 
world  in  the  guise  of  sinful  flesh.  The  devil 
seized  him,  considering  him  to  be  his  rightful 
prey.  In  this,  however,  he  overstepped  his  right- 
ful limits.  Through  this  unjustifiable  act  he  lost 
any  claim  that  he  may  have  seemed  to  possess 
against  those  that  had  really  sinned. 

An  authority  so  revered  in  the  church  as  St. 
Augustine  presents  in  the  most  distinct  manner 
this  view  of  the  death  of  Christ.  After  present- 
ing the  view  that  because  the  devil  had  slain  one 
in  whom  he  found  nothing  worthy  of  death,  it 
was  fitting  that  those  whom  he  held  as  his  debt- 
ors, and  who   believed   on   him  that  had  been 


yo  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

unjustly  slain,  should  be  set  free,  he  exclaims, 
"  This  is  what  we  call  being  justified  by  the  blood 
of  Christ."  ^  This,  he  explains  elsewhere,  was  not 
the  only  way  in  which  men  could  be  redeemed 
from  the  devil,  but  it  was  the  best  way.  From 
the  fact  that  the  devil  was  conquered,  not  by 
might,  but  by  justice,  men  were  taught  a  lesson 
in  regard  to  the  conduct  of  their  lives. 

Petrus  Lombardus  presents  this  theory  of  the 
efficacy  of  the  death  of  Christ  in  its  most  con- 
crete form.  He  says  that  Christ  set  his  cross 
as  a  trap,  and  put  his  blood  as  a  bait.^  It  should 
be  added  that  this  view  is  not  held  with  perfect 
consistency  by  this  writer.  In  the  passage  from 
which  this  statement  is  taken,  he  lays  stress, 
apparently,  on  the  moral  aspect  of  the  death  of 
Christ.  "  Satan  held  us,"  he  says,  "solely  by  the 
bond  of  our  sins.  These  were  the  chains  of  the 
captives.  God  seized  the  vessels  which  the  devil 
had  filled  with  bitterness,  poured  out  the  bitter- 
ness, and  filled  them  with  sweetness."  In  the 
next  section,  however,  he  states  the  diabolical 
theory  almost  in  the  words  of  St.  Augustine.^ 

1  De  Trinitate,  xiii.,  xiv. 

2  Libri  Sententiarum,  Distinction  iii.  19,  i. 
^  Ibid.  20,  I. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  Jl 

This  theory  seems  to  have  been  the  one  most 
generally  accepted  until  the  time  of  Anselm, 
who,  in  the  eleventh  century,  developed  a  the- 
ory that  was  the  germ  of  the  one  which  later 
found  general  acceptance.  Even  after  the  time 
of  Anselm,  however,  we  find  the  diabolical  the- 
ory recognized.  Thomas  Aquinas,  for  instance, 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  gives  it  a  prominent 
place  in  his  discussion  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
atonement.^ 

The  statements  of  the  writers  who  presented 
this  view  of  the  death  of  Christ  are  so  brief  and 
dogmatic  that  they  give  no  clue  as  to  its  origin 
or  basis. 

Two  passages  of  Scripture  occur  to  me  that 
might  suggest  this  idea.  One  is  that  in  which 
the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  says,  ''that  through 
death  he  might  bring  to  nought  him  that  had  the 
power  of  death,  that  is,  the  devil."  ^  This  passage 
would,  however,  as  easily  admit  of  two  or  three 
different  explanations.  The  other  passage  that 
I  have  in  mind  is  much  more  striking.  It  is 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  and  is  as  fol- 
lows :  "  Having  put  off  from  himself  the  princi- 

1  Summa  TheologicB,  Part  III.  quaest.  49,  art.  2,  et passim. 

2  Hebrews  ii.  14. 


72  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

palities  and  the  powers,  he  made  a  show  of  them 
openly,  triumphing  over  them  in  it."i  While 
this  passage  would  adapt  itself  in  a  general  way 
to  any  theory  of  the  atonement,  what  I  have 
called  the  diabolical  theory  is  the  only  one  for 
which  it  has  any  special  fitness.  It  certainly 
does  not  suggest  the  details  of  this  theory,  but 
the  condition  in  which  the  powers  of  evil  are 
left,  according  to  the  verse,  is  precisely  that  in 
which  they  are  left  in  the  theory  under  consider- 
ation ;  if  indeed  it  is  to  the  powers  of  evil  that 
this  verse  refers.  It  is,  all  along,  the  picturesque 
texts,  such  as  this,  that  have  done  the  most  to 
shape  the  thought  of  Christendom. 

Whether  the  verses  to  which  I  have  referred 
did  or  did  not  suggest  this  theory  of  the  efficacy 
of  the  death  of  Christ,  it  was  the  spirit  of  the 
age  that  was  the  most  potent  factor  in  its  sup- 
port. We  have  here  an  example  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  general  doctrine,  that  by  the  death 
of  Christ  men  are  saved,  has  been  filled  out  by 
the  imagination  or  the  reasoning  of  theologians, 
with  little  careful  examination  of  the  actual, 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament  in  regard  to  the 
matter. 

1  Colossians  ii.  15. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  73 

St.  Anselm. 

The  theory  of  which  I  have  spoken  did  not 
maintain  itself  without  opposition ;  nor,  though 
it  would  seem  to  have  been  much  more  promi- 
nent than  any  other,  did  it  stand  alone.  St.  An- 
selm gives  us  a  picture  of  the  unsettled  state  of 
thought  in  regard  to  this  matter  in  his  day  by 
referring  to  the  different  views  that  were  then 
held  in  regard  to  the  efficacy  of  the  death  of 
Christ.  Those  that  he  names  are  the  theories 
that  Christ  by  his  death  delivered  men  from  their 
sins,  from  the  divine  anger,  from  hell,  and  from 
the  power  of  the  devil.^ 

Anselm  may  be  said  to  be  the  first  theologian 
whose  reasoning  in  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
atonement  stands  in  definite  relation  to  modern 
thought.  With  him  this  doctrine  may  be  said  to 
have  commenced  its  regular  development.  This, 
it  should  be  noted,  was  more  than  a  thousand 
years  after  the  event  occurred  which  he  under- 
took to  explain. 

Anselm  is  one  of  the  most  striking  figures  in 
the  history  of  the  church,  and  he  has  exerted  a 
wider  and  more  prolonged  influence  than  most 

1  Cur  Deus  Homo,  Book  I.  6. 


^^4  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

theologians.  His  mind  was  a  curious  mixture 
of  the  sensible  and  the  fantastic.  The  method 
of  his  thought  was  ingenious  rather  than  logical, 
but  his  ingenuity  was  immense.  In  his  so-called 
"  ontological  argument  "  he  formed  a  network 
of  fallacy  which  for  many  centuries  entangled 
the  clearest  thinkers  of  the  church,  and  which 
was  broken  through  only  by  the  leonine  strength 
of  Kant.  In  the  treatise  which  now  concerns 
us,  his  **  Cur  Deus  Homo,"  we  have  a  most  cu- 
rious and  interesting  exhibition  of  the  man,  with 
all  the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  his  thought. 
We  find  him  manifesting  the  most  profound 
sense  of  the  divine  majesty  and  of  the  enormity 
of  sin  ;  we  find  him  elaborating  a  theory  which 
is  imposing  by  its  boldness,  its  subtilty,  and  its 
air  of  logical  consistency.  This  theory  he  illus- 
trates, now  with  solid  seeming  arguments,  and 
now  with  fanciful  conceits,  which,  if  it  were  not 
for  his  grand  seriousness,  we  should  sometimes 
imagine  to  be  intended  for  jokes,  and  now  with 
suggestions  which  could  come  only  from  an  imag- 
ination that  was  wholly  unrestrained,  and  that 
had  been  stimulated  by  the  mythology  of  the  early 
church. 

His  argument  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows  : 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  75 

He  illustrates  the  awfulness  of  sin  by  saying 
that,  if  we  are  told  to  look  one  way  and  God 
says  "No,"  better  the  universe  perish  than  that 
we  disobey  God.^  The  satisfaction  for  sin  must 
be  the  offering,  therefore,  of  something  that  is 
worth  more  than  the  universe.^  This  something 
is  found  in  the  death  of  Christ.  "  Would  you 
slay  him  wittingly,"  asks  Anselm,  "  to  escape 
the  guilt  of  the  world  ?  "  The  answer  is  "  No,"  ^ 
and  in  this  way  it  is  shown  that  the  life  of 
Christ  is  worth  more  than  the  universe.  This 
great  work,  by  which  something  is  offered  to 
God  worth  more  than  all  the  world  beside,  can 
be  performed  only  by  God ;  it  is  owed  only  by 
man :  thus  for  it  there  is  needed  the  God-man.* 
We  hesitate  to  introduce  among  such  solemn 
and  lofty  thought  illustrations  of  the  other  side 
of  Anselm's  mental  construction ;  but  this  is 
necessary,  if  we  are  to  get  any  true  notion  of 
him  and  of  his  work.  After  recognizing  the  fact 
of  the  necessity  of  the  incarnation  of  one  of  the 
persons  of  the  Godhead,  he  shows  that  it  was 
the  Son  rather  than  the  Father  who  should  put 
on  flesh,  by  this  illustration  among  others.     If 

1  Cur  Deus  Homo,  i.  21.  ^  /^/^.  i.  21. 

8  Ibid.  ii.  14.  *  Ibid.  ii.  6. 


'J^  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

the  Father  had  been  born  into  the  world  there 
would  have  been  two  grandchildren  in  the  Trin- 
ity.i  The  Father,  born  into  the  household  of 
Mary,  would  have  been  the  grandchild  of  the 
parents  of  Mary ;  while  the  second  person  of 
the  Trinity,  being  the  Son  of  the  Father,  would 
be  the  grandson  of  Mary.  The  existence  of  two 
grandchildren  in  the  Trinity,  he  thinks,  would 
be,  for  some  reason  which  he  does  not  express, 
unfitting.  Another  of  the  notions  of  Anselm  is 
that  through  the  atonement  God  would  fill  out 
the  proper  number  of  the  angels,  which  had  be- 
come lessened  by  the  fall  of  those  who  sinned.^ 
The  reasons  that  he  suggests  for  the  virginal 
birth  of  Christ  are  curious  and  characteristic. 
There  are,  he  tells  us,  four  ways  in  which  hu- 
man life  might  be  produced  upon  the  earth,  —  by 
ordinary  generation  ;  directly  from  earth,  as  in 
the  case  of  Adam  ;  directly  from  man,  as  in  the 
case  of  Eve  ;  and  directly  from  woman.  The 
first  three  had  been  tried  ;  it  was  well  now  to 
try  the  fourth.^  Another  reason  given  in  the 
same  connection  is,  that  as  sin  came  from  wo- 
man, it  is  well  that  redemption  should  come 
from  her  also,  lest  woman  despair. 

1  Cur  Deus  Homo,  ii.  9.  2  /^^v/.  i.  16  ff.  3  Ibid.  ii.  8, 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  77 

These  illustrations  may  suffice  to  show  the 
varied  elements  that  characterized  this  very  re- 
markable thinker.  It  is  important  to  notice 
these  different  phases  of  his  mind,  if  we  would 
know  how  far  his  judgment  is  to  be  accepted  in 
regard  to  any  important  question. 

When  we  look  at  the  work  of  Anselm  as  a 
whole,  we  are  struck  by  the  fact  that  he  also  is 
working  over  the  general  theory  of  an  atone- 
ment. He  is  presenting  his  notion  of  an  ideal 
atonement  rather  than  seeking,  by  a  careful 
study  of  the  New  Testament,  to  learn  what  is 
the  form  under  which  the  conception  of  recon- 
ciliation with  God  is  actually  taught  in  it.  He 
takes  from  the  New  Testament  directly,  or  indi- 
rectly through  the  church,  the  idea  that  such  a 
reconciliation  had  actually  been  offered  ;  and 
then  from  the  point  which  the  church  had 
reached,  he  sets  forth  to  construct  the  plan  of 
such  a  transaction  out  of  his  own  head.  So  far 
as  his  special  doctrine  is  concerned,  he  does  not 
refer  in  a  single  instance  to  the  authority  of 
Scripture.  Indeed,  as  the  title  of  his  treatise 
shows,  what  interested  him  was  not  so  much  the 
development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement 
as.  that  of  the  incarnation.     The  fact  that  God 


yS  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

had  stooped  to  earth  and  had  become  incarnate 
as  man,  putting  on  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh, 
was  something  stupendous.  The  question  forced 
itself  upon  him,  Why  did  God  become  man  ? 
"  Cur  Deus  Homo  ?  "  There  must  be  thought 
out  some  scheme  for  man's  redemption  which 
only  an  incarnate  God  could  accomplish. 

However  imposing  the  theory  of  Anselm  may 
be  to  a  superficial  thought,  when  we  look  at  it 
more  closely  we  see  that  it  is  absolutely  empty 
and  meaningless.  According  to  the  view  of  An- 
selm, Christ,  by  submitting  himself  to  death, 
performed  an  act  the  merit  of  which  was  suf- 
ficient to  balance  the  sin  of  the  entire  race  of 
man.  The  peculiarity  of  the  view  is  that  this 
death  was  accepted  for  no  object  beyond  itself. 
Anselm  distinctly  repudiated  the  view  which  had 
been  so  widely  held,  that  the  death  of  Christ  de- 
livered man  from  the  power  of  the  devil.  His 
theory  had  not  developed  itself  to  the  thought 
that  Christ  stood  in  the  place  of  the  sinner  and 
freed  him  from  the  wrath  of  God  by  bearing  the 
penalty  which  man  deserved.  Either  of  these 
thoughts  would  give  a  motive  for  the  death  of 
Christ,  and  would  show  how  his  dying  for  a  defi- 
nite end  could  properly  be  reckoned  as  in  the 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  79 

highest  degree  meritorious.  In  the  theory  of 
Anselm,  Christ,  the  second  person  of  the  Trin- 
ity, descended  from  heaven  simply  that  he  might 
suffer  death  and  return  thither  again.  As  I  have 
said,  the  whole  transaction  is  without  signifi- 
cance. 

Thomas  Aquinas. 

Before  considering  the  form  in  which  the 
thought  of  Anselm  later  received  its  much- 
needed  completion,  we  will  notice  for  a  moment 
how  chaotic  the  theory  of  the  Atonement  re- 
mained for  some  time  after  the  work  of  Anselm. 
Thomas  Aquinas  presents  it  under  the  most  va- 
ried forms.  At  one  moment  the  death  of  Christ 
is  symbolic.  At  another  it  is  fitted  to  furnish 
to  man  both  an  example  and  a  stimulus.  At 
another  we  have  repeated  in  its  old  form  the 
story  of  the  transaction  with  the  devil.  Then 
again  we  have  indicated  the  solidarity  of  human- 
ity. Christ  can  redeem  men  because  he  is  the 
head  and  they  the  members  of  the  same  body. 
Then  the  death  of  Christ  is  an  acceptable  sacri- 
fice. Again  it  is  a  superabundant  satisfaction, 
thus  taking  away  reatum  poefice.  All  these 
conceptions  are  brought  together  without  any 
attempt  to  harmonize  them  or  to  reduce  them  to 


8o  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

any  common  principle.     It  is  simply  recognized 

that  the  death  of  Christ  was  effective  by  all  these 

methods.^ 

Luther. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  theory  of  Anselm  must 
by  an  inner  necessity  have  become  in  time  filled 
out  with  the  penal  substitutionary  notion  of  the 
death  of  Christ.  The  change  was  helped,  if  it 
was  not  actually  motived,  by  a  text  scarcely  less 
picturesque  than  that  which  may  have  suggested 
the  theory  of  the  discomfiture  of  the  devil. 
"  Christ,*'  says  Paul,  "  redeemed  us  from  the 
curse  of  the  law,  having  become  a  curse  for  us  ; 
for  it  is  written,  *  Cursed  is  every  one  that  hang- 
eth  on  a  tree.'  "  ^  At  this  point  the  develop- 
ment of  the  theory  touches,  or  is  touched  by,  the 
language  of  the  New  Testament.  It  takes,  how- 
ever, single  suggestions  from  single  passages, 
and  is  not  the  result  of  a  careful  study  of  the 
New  Testament  as  a  whole,  although  Luther  in 
his  elaborate  Commentaries  made  such  a  study. 

It  is  worth  while  to  notice  how  picturesquely 
Luther,  in  his  Commentary,  treats  the  passage 
just  quoted,  which  naturally  lends  itself  to  such 

1  See  Summa  Theologies^  Part  III.     Quaest.  46  and  49. 

2  Galatians  iii.  13. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  8 1 

use.  "  For  Christ,  so  far  as  concerns  his  person, 
is  indeed  innocent,  and  ought  not  to  hang  on  the 
cross  and  become  a  curse  ;  but  because,  accord- 
ing to  the  law,  every  murderer  should  be  hung, 
Christ,  according  to  the  law  of  Moses,  must  hang  ; 
for  he  has  taken  upon  himself  the  person  of  a 
sinner  and  murderer  ;  yes,  not  of  one  alone,  but 
of  all  sinners  and  murderers  in  a  heap  ;  for  we 
are  all  together  sinners  and  murderers  (for  whoso 
is  angry  with  his  neighbor  or  hates  him  is  a 
murderer),  and  therefore  deserve  death  and  dam- 
nation. But  Christ  has  taken  upon  himself  the 
sins  of  all  of  us,  and  has  died  for  them  on  the 
cross.  Therefore  was  he  obliged  to  become  what 
we  are,  namely,  a  sinner,  murderer,  transgressor, 
etc.  Therefore  Isaiah  says  that  he  is  reckoned 
among  the  murderers.  And  indeed  all  the  proph- 
ets have  foreseen  that  Christ  would  be  the  great- 
est sinner,  whose  like  was  never  witnessed  upon 
the  earth.  For  since  he  is  a  sacrifice  for  the  sin 
of  the  whole  world,  he  is  not  such  an  one  as  is 
innocent  and  without  sin,  is  not  the  Son  of  God 
in  glory ;  but  a  sinner  is  he  for  a  little  while  for- 
saken of  God,  who  bears  and  has  lying  on  his 
neck  the  sin  of  St.  Paul,  who  was  a  blasphemer, 
persecutor,  and  scoffer ;  of  St.  Peter,  who  denied 


82  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Christ  ;  also  of  David,  who  was  an  adulterer  and 
murderer  and  caused  the  name  of  God  to  be 
blasphemed  among  the  Gentiles.  In  a  word,  he 
is  the  one  who  bears  on  his  body  and  has  loaded 
upon  him  all  the  sins  of  all  men  in  the  whole 
world,  who  have  ever  been,  are  now,  and  shall 
be.  Not  so  that  he  himself  has  committed  such 
sins,  but  that  he  has  taken  J;hem  from  us  who 
have  committed  them,  upon  his  own  body,  and 
that  he  has  atoned  for  them  with  his  own  blood. 
.  .  .  God  sent  his  only  begotten  Son  into  the 
world,  threw  upon  him  all  the  sins  of  all  men, 
and  thus  spake  to  him  :  Be  thou  Peter  who  de- 
nied ;  Paul,  who  persecuted,  blasphemed,  and 
used  all  violence  ;  David,  who  committed  adul- 
tery ;  also  the  sinner  who  ate  the  apple  in  Para- 
dise ;  the  murderer  who  hung  upon  the  cross. 
In  a  word,  thou  shalt  be  what  all  men  are,  as  if 
thou  alone  hadst  committed  the  sins  of  all  men  ; 
therefore  think  now  how  you  will  pay  and  make 
satisfaction  for  them." 

Since  Christ  by  his  death  performed  this  great 
service  for  men,  bearing  the  penalty  of  all  the 
sins  that  ever  were  or  ever  will  be  in  the  world, 
the  act  acquires  meaning  and  infinite  worth.  The 
willingness  thus  to  die  for  men  might  well  be 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  83 

regarded  as  an  act  of  merit  sufficient,  when  it  is 
imputed  to  his  followers,  to  make  actually  accep- 
table to  God  those  whom  his  death  had  freed 
from  the  terrors  of  the  divine  wrath.  The  theory 
of  Anselm  thus  received  its  needed  content  and 
complement ;  and  the  theologian  might  well  re- 
joice in  this  solid  and  well-rounded  conception 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement. 

Socinus  and  Grotius. 

The  development  of  Christian  doctrine  can, 
however,  no  more  reach  a  position  of  absolute 
rest  than  can  the  development  of  philosophic 
thought.  An  inner  dialectic  drives  it  on.  The 
peace  of  the  orthodox  theologian,  rejoicing  in 
his  completed  work,  was  rudely  broken  in  upon 
by  heretical  questioning.  To  Socinus  the  result 
which  we  have  just  contemplated  seemed  not 
at  all  satisfactory.  He  urged,  as  Duns  Scotus 
had  urged  before  him,  that  Christ  had  made  no 
infinite  atonement,  for  it  was  the  man,  not  the 
God,  who  suffered  and  died.  Further,  he  urged 
that  if  Christ  had  paid  the  complete  penalty  for 
all  the  sins  of  the  world,  then  God  had  no  fur- 
ther claim  upon  men  ;  and,  live  as  they  might, 
all  men  had  a  right  to  heaven.     If  some  one  has 


84  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

completely  paid  my  debt,  the  creditor  can  insist 
on  nothing  further ;  and  for  him  to  make  condi- 
tions would  be  impertinent.  Such  flaws  did  the 
awakened  thought  of  the  age  find  in  a  scheme 
that  had  seemed  so  perfect. 

Here  occurred  what  was,  perhaps,  the  most 
brilliant  strategetic  movement  that  was  ever  ac- 
complished in  the  history  of  theological  polemics. 
In  the  presence  of  the  sharp  attack  that  has  been 
referred  to,  Grotius,  assuming  the  direction  of 
the  orthodox  defence,  effected  a  change  of  front 
which  left  almost  powerless  the  attack  that  had 
seemed  so  irresistible.  Christ,  he  urged,  has  in- 
deed made  satisfaction  for  the  sin  of  the  world. 
But  the  very  term  implies  that  what  was  given 
was  not  the  absolute  equivalent  of  that  which 
might  have  been  required.  If  I  owe  a  hundred 
dollars,  and  a  man  pays  on  my  behalf  a  hundred 
dollars  to  my  creditor,  he  is  not  said  to  make 
satisfaction  ;  he  has  paid  the  debt.  The  satis- 
faction, not  being  the  whole  amount  that  was 
due,  may  be  whatever  the  creditor  is  pleased  to 
accept.  It  was  not  necessary  that  Christ  should 
bear  the  full  penalty  for  the  sins  of  the  world. 
It  was  only  necessary  that  God  should  accept 
what  he  actually  suffered  in  the  place  of  the 
penalty  which  the  sinner  had  incurred. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  85 

It  is  obvious  that  to  the  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment as  thus  stated,  the  objections  urged  by  the 
Socinians  lose,  to  a  great  extent,  their  force.  Since 
the  full  price  was  not  paid,  but  a  partial  payment 
was  accepted  in  its  stead,  no  one  has  any  right 
to  claim  the  advantage  of  it  for  himself.  God 
may  impose  what  terms  He  will  as  the  condition 
upon  which  forgiveness  is  granted.  Moreover,  it 
is  real  forgiveness  that  is  granted ;  that  is,  only 
a  part  of  the  debt  is  paid  ;  the  rest  is  forgiven. 

Another  aspect  of  the  theory  of  Grotius  is  of 
great  interest  as  showing  the  manner  in  which 
theology  is  affected  by  the  changing  sentiment 
of  the  world.  In  every  age,  theology  reflects 
more  or  less  perfectly  the  spirit  of  the  time.  It 
may,  indeed,  very  often  be  in  arrears  ;  but  it  fol- 
lows even  when  it  does  not  keep  pace.  With 
Anselm,  sin  was  an  offence  against  the  divine 
majesty.  It  was  the  honor  of  God  that  was  at 
stake.  If  God's  honor  did  not  suffer  from  sin, 
it  was  simply  because  sin  was  punished.  "  Sup- 
pose," he  said,  "an  object  under  the  sky  to  strive 
to  flee  from  under  the  sky  ;  it  flees  from  one  part 
of  the  heavens  only  to  draw  near  to  another  part 
of  them.  So  if  one  wishes  to  flee  from  under 
the  commanding  will  of  God,  he  rushes  beneath 


S6  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

his  punishing  will."  ^  It  was  not  consistent  with 
the  divine  honor  to  remit  the  penalties  of  sin, 
unless  by  an  offering,  like  that  made  by  the  di- 
vine man,  the  claims  of  the  divine  honor  have 
been  satisfied. 

At  the  time  in  which  Anselm  wrote,  all  this 
seemed  very  reasonable.  It  appeared,  doubtless, 
to  be  an  extremely  natural  and  common-sense 
view,  compared  with  the  somewhat  fantastic  doc- 
trine of  the  transaction  with  the  devil  which  it 
was  slowly  to  supersede.  At  that  time,  as  long 
after,  the  people  were  considered  to  exist  for  the 
sake  of  the  ruler.  The  king  was  the  owner  of 
the  kingdom,  and  managed  it  for  his  own  advan- 
tage and  glory.  If  his  subjects  were  cared  for, 
it  was  rather  on  account  of  his  own  magnanimity 
than  on  account  of  any  right  that  they  had  to  be 
so  regarded.  At  the  time  of  Grotius,  however, 
the  modern  notion  of  the  relation  between  the 
governor  and  the  governed  had  begun  to  make 
itself  recognized.  The  people  in  these  later  days 
are  seen  to  have  rights  which  the  ruler  must  re- 
spect. Government  is  felt  to  be  for  the  sake  of 
the  governed,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  governor. 
The  ideal  towards  which  this  notion  tends  is  that 

1  Cur  Deus  Homo^  i.  1 5. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE,  8/ 

of  "  a  government  of  the  people,  for  the  people, 
by  the  people."  This  ideal  is  far  from  being 
fulfilled,  even  in  our  time  and  nation.  At  the 
time  of  Grotius  it  was  by  no  means  recognized 
even  as  an  ideal.  We  see,  however,  the  great 
change  that  the  thought  of  men  had  undergone 
in  regard  to  this  matter,  from  the  fact  that  it  was 
no  longer  the  honor  of  the  emperor  of  the  uni- 
verse that  was  to  be  guarded ;  it  was  the  dignity 
of  the  law  that  was  to  be  maintained.  If  the  law 
could  be  violated  with  impunity,  it  would  become 
degraded  and  powerless.  Christ,  by  his  death, 
did  enough  to  satisfy  the  dignity  and  authority 
of  the  law  ;  and  thus  sinners  who  complied  with 
the  conditions  that  had  been  established  might 
be  forgiven. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  this  theory,  which 
recognized  the  importance  of  maintaining  the 
dignity  and  authority  of  the  law  instead  of 
guarding  the  honor  of  a  personal  ruler,  should 
have  had  such  an  attraction  for  the  theologians 
of  New  England. 

Baur,  I  conceive,  was  wrong  in  insisting  that 
in  all  this  Grotius  surrendered  the  ground  to  the 
Socinians,  whom  he  fancied  he  was  conquering. 
The  thought  of  Baur  is,  that  since  the  object  of 


88  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

the  death  of  Christ  was  to  make  men  honor  the 
law  even  while  its  penalties  were  in  part  relaxed, 
he,  as  truly  as  the  Socinians,  placed  the  efficacy 
of  this  death  in  its  effect  upon  the  minds  of 
men.  In  the  thought  of  Anselm  and  his  fol- 
bwers,  the  death  of  Christ  worked  Godwards. 
In  the  theory  of  Grotius  and  of  the  Socinians,  it 
worked  manwards.  This  criticism  is  not  wholly 
true.  The  element  of  the  atonement  as  affected 
by  the  death  of  Christ,  according  to  the  thought 
of  Grotius,  was  that  by  it  God  manifested  his 
displeasure  at  sin.  The  manifestation  of  displea- 
sure is  not  made  merely  for  the  sake  of .  being 
seen.  Displeasure  seeks  its  own  manifestation 
in  part  for  its  own  sake.  There  could  be  no  dis- 
pleasure at  sin  manifested  if  none  existed.  When 
a  group  of  men  have  been  guilty  of  some  mur- 
derous act,  and  a  part  are  sentenced  to  death  and 
a  part  receive  milder  treatment,  I  think  the  gen- 
eral feeling  is  not  merely  that  on  account  of  the 
infliction  of  the  death  penalty  in  some  cases, 
others  who  are  more  disposed  to  commit  the 
crime  will  be  deterred  ;  but  that  a  certain  re- 
spect has  been  actually  shown  to  the  law  itself. 
Thus,  I  conceive  that  in  the  governmental  theory 
of  the  atonement  it  was  felt  that  the  law  was  to 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  89 

a  certain  extent  honored  by  the  death  of  Christ ; 
and  we  may  assume  that  it  would  be  in  accord- 
ance with  this  theory  to  say  that  God  could  not 
bring  himself  to  forgive  sin  until  His  sense  of 
condemnation  had  been  satisfied.  Even,  how- 
ever, if  we  leave  this  out  of  the  account  as  pos- 
sibly forcing  an  expression  used  by  Grotius,  still 
his  theory  and  that  of  the  Socinians  remain  wide 
apart.  They  may  belong  to  the  same  genus,  but 
they  represent  very  different  species.  In  the  case 
of  the  Socinians  the  death  of  Christ  was  designed 
to  manifest  the  love  of  God,  and  thus  to  move 
the  hearts  of  men  to  an  answering  love.  In  the 
thought  of  Grotius  it  was  to  manifest  not  only 
the  love  but  the  justice  of  God,  and  to  exalt  the 
authority  and  dignity  of  the  law  even  above  that 
of  love. 

Modern  Developments  of  Doctrine. 

The  manner  in  which  the  development  of  doc- 
trine has  taken  place  by  a  law  of  its  own,  and 
with  little  reference  to  the  precise  language  of 
the  New  Testament,  may  be  further  illustrated 
by  what  has  been  going  on  in  these  later  times. 
In  these  we  have  doctrine  in  its  making  ;  or  rather 
we  have  doctrines  in  their  struggle  for  existence. 


QO  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

The  moral  sense  of  many  theologians  has  been 
dissatisfied  with  the  traditional  dogma  of  the 
atonement,  and  one  and  another  has  tried  to  re- 
work or  re-state  the  doctrine  in  such  a  way  as  to 
commend  it  to  the  conscience  of  the  present  day. 
These  attempts  have  started  from  the  general 
idea  that  somehow  Christ  made  atonement ;  and 
they  have  sought  to  devise  a  scheme  of  atone- 
ment that  should  be  free  from  the  objections 
that  had  been  brought  against  the  old.  These 
attempts  have  been,  however,  wholly  individual, 
in  the  sense  that  they  make  little  claim  to  a 
Scriptural  basis,  and  rest  only  upon  the  author- 
ity of  the  theologians  who  have  proposed  them, 
and  upon  that  of  their  own  merits. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  such  attempts 
was  made  by  Dr.  John  McLeod  Campbell.  In 
his  treatise  he  quotes  President  Edwards,  who, 
in  contending  "  that  sin  must  be  punished  with 
an  infinite  penalty,"  said  :  "  God  could  not  be 
just  to  himself  without  this  vindication,  unless 
there  could  be  such  a  thing  as  a  repentance,  hu- 
miliation, and  sorrow  for  this  (that  is,  for  sin) 
proportionate  to  the  greatness  of  the  majesty 
despised."  ^    In  the  thought  of  Campbell  this  "  hu- 

1  Campbell's  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  p.  137.     Compare 
Edwards's  Satisfaction  for  Sin,  ch,  ii.  1-3. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  9I 

miliation  and  sorrow"  for  sin  was  accomplished 
by  Jesus.  He  uttered  from  the  depth  of  human- 
ity an  "amen"  to  God's  condemnation  of  the 
sin  of  man.  Through  this  response  of  Jesus  on 
behalf  of  men,  they  are  in  a  position  to  win  for- 
giveness and  acceptance  with  God. 

The  theory  of  Dorner  is  very  much  like  that 
of  Campbell.  According  to  this,  Christ  identi- 
fies himself  by  sympathy  with  men,  feels  their 
sin  and  the  righteousness  of  God's  anger.  He 
gives  up  everything  but  love,  and  bears  by  sym- 
pathy even  the  sense  of  the  divine  wrath.  "  He 
wraps  men  in  by  the  might  of  his  love,  so  that 
he  will  answer  for  them,  and  by  this  substitution 
of  himself  will  save  and  cover  them.  In  this 
willing  surrender  he  lets  his  blood  flow,  and 
burying  himself  in  the  feeling  of  our  ill  deserts 
and  of  God's  righteous  displeasure  (which  breaks 
his  heart),  he  gives  his  spirit  into  the  Father's 
hands." ^  Again,  he  says,  "As  he  could  not  be 
thought  of  without  his  humanity,  so  humanity 
could  not  be  thought  of  truly  without  him  ;  and. 
thus  in  him  the  race  atoned  for  its  sin."  ^ 

Dr.  Bushnell,  after  having  in  an  earlier  work 
presented  merely  the  moral  aspect  of  the  atone- 

1  Dorner,  Christliche  Glaubenslehre,  ii.  650.  ^  /^/^,  p.  522. 


92  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

ment,  showing  how  the  suffering  of  Christ  was 
fitted  to  affect  the  hearts  of  men,  finds  at  last 
the  significance  of  the  suffering  of  Christ  in  the 
fact  that  one  cannot  really  forgive  sin  till  he  has 
suffered  for  the  sinner.^ 

Dr.  Newman  Smyth  presents  a  somewhat  sim- 
ilar view  in  the  statement  that  God  cannot  for- 
give "without  condemning  sin  in  sorrow  for  it." 
God,  however,  cannot  suffer  in  himself,  but  only 
in  some  outgoing  from  himself,  that  is  in  Christ.^ 

The  view  advanced  by  Professor  Stevens  be- 
longs also  to  the  group  which  we  are  here  con- 
sidering. He,  indeed,  disclaims  any  Pauline  au- 
thority for  his  special  view.  He  says :  "  The 
question.  Why  do  Christ's  sufferings  avail  as  a 
substitute  for  man's  punishment  1  Paul  answers 
by  saying,  because  they  are  an  adequate  demon- 
stration of  the  divine  righteousness.  The  fur- 
ther inquiry,  What  is  there  in  these  sufferings 
which  renders  them  a  vindication  of  God's  holi- 
ness and  a  satisfaction  to  the  law  }  is  much  more 
difficult  to  answer  by  appeal  to  the  apostle's  lan- 
guage."^   We  appear  to  have,  then,  in  what  fol- 

1  Bushnell's  Forgiveness  and  Law,  especially  chapter  i. 

2  Smyth's  The  Orthodoxy  of  To-day,  p.  174. 
8  Stevens's  The  Pauline  Theology,  p.  247. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  93 

lows,  to  use  an  expression  which  I  cannot  help 
repeating,  a  re-working  of  the  general  teaching 
of  Paul  that  Christ  by  his  suffering  and  death  ac- 
complished an  atonement,  without  any  reference 
to  the  specific  teaching  of  Paul  on  the  subject. 
Professor  Stevens,  in  his  development  of  the 
theme,  insists  on  two  points.  One  is  the  sym- 
pathetic identification  of  Christ  with  man  in  his 
sinful  condition.  The  other  is  his  testimony  by 
suffering  with  and  for  man  to  sin's  desert  of  pun- 
ishment. "God,"  he  tells  us,  "is  rendered  favor- 
able to  man's  forgiveness  by  the  work  of  Christ 
in  the  sense  that  an  adequate  revelation  of  his 
righteousness  against  sin  is  made  in  his  suffer- 
ings." ^  The  first  of  these  points  is  similar  to  the 
view  of  Campbell  and  Dorner.  The  second  is,  so 
far  as  I  have  noticed,  peculiar  to  Dr.  Stevens. 
While  I  cannot  regard  it  as  expressing  the 
thought  of  Paul,  as,  indeed,  it  does  not  profess 
to  do,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  the  least  artificial 
and  therefore  the  best  among  the  suggestions 
that  I  have  thus  grouped  together.  The  willing- 
ness of  Christ  to  suffer  and  die  in  the  battle 
against  sin  is  a  testimony  to  his  sense  of  the 
evil  of  sin,  and  may  easily  be   taken  as  repre- 

1  Stevens's  The  Pauline  Theology^  p.  250. 


94  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

senting  or  involving  the  divine  condemnation 
of  it.  The  artificiality  in  the  position  appears 
when  this  is  made  the  formal  basis  of  a  possible 
forgiveness  of  sin  by  God. 

While  Professor  Stevens  makes  little  attempt 
to  find  a  special  Pauline  authority  for  his  inter- 
pretation, Professor  Du  Bose  continually  refers 
to  the  language  of  Paul.^  His  object  appears  to 
be,  however,  not  to  reach  Paul's  thought  by  a 
study  of  his  words,  but  to  show  that  Paul's 
words  are  not  opposed  to  the  view  of  the  atone- 
ment which  he  urges.  His  attempt  is  ingenious. 
Without  quoting  literally,  I  am  sure  that.  I  ex- 
press his  thought  when  I  say  that  it  affirms  that 
whatever  Paul  asserts  to  be  true  formally  is  so 
because  it  is  true  actually.  If  the  term  "justifi- 
cation," for  instance,  has  a  forensic  meaning,  this 
forensic  meaning  assumes  a  substantial  meaning. 
If  God  in  a  legal  sense  justifies  the  sinner,  it  is 
because  He  has  already  made  him  just,  or  has 
set  in  motion  the  agency  that  should  eventually 
make  him  just.  We  have  thus  the  Socinian  doc- 
trine united  with  a  recognition  of  a  certain  foren- 
sic use  of  language  by  Paul.     The  point  of  de- 

^  Du  Bose,  Soteriology  of  the  New  Testament.     Cf.  pp.  47  ff. 
and  90  ff. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  95 

parture  is  the  traditional  view  of  the  atonement. 
Since  this  opposes  the  moral  sense  of  Professor 
Du  Bose,  the  offending  elements  must  be  left 
out  of  it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  assumed  that 
Paul's  statements  must  also  be  in  accord  with 
our  moral  sense.  Thus  we  have  an  attempt  at 
a  general  reconciliation.  Paul's  expressions  are 
explained  in  a  roundabout  manner.  A  result  is 
reached  to  which  they  may  be  made  to  conform 
after  a  fashion,  but  which  they  would  not  have 
suggested.  There  is  no  index  to  Professor  Du 
Bose's  work,  and  I  would  not  trust  too  confi- 
dently to  my  memory ;  but  I  do  not  recall,  nor 
do  I  find  in  the  portions  of  his  work  where  it 
would  naturally  be  expected,  any  reference  to 
such  important  texts  as,  **  I,  through  the  law,  died 
unto  the  law,"  ^  and  "  Christ  redeemed  us  from 
the  curse  of  the  law,  having  become  a  curse  for 
us :  for  it  is  written,  '  Cursed  is  every  one  that 
hangeth  on  a  tree.'  "  ^  I  notice,  also,  that  in  the 
carefully  indexed  work  of  Professor  Stevens  there 
is  no  reference  to  the  first  of  these  passages.  I 
do  not  doubt  that  these  acute  and  learned  theo- 
logians could  explain  these  verses  in  harmony 
with  their  views  ;  though,  perhaps,  the  explana- 

.     1  Galatians  ii.  19.  2  Galatians  iii.  13. 


96  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

tion  would  be  a  forced  one.  If  they  are  not  re- 
ferred to,  it  can  be  only  because  these  passages 
are  not  vital  and  essential,  so  far  as  their  theory 
is  concerned.  With  Paul,  however,  they  were 
vital  and  essential.  They  are  not  passages  to  be 
explained  in  accordance  with  any  preconceived 
theory.  They  are  passages  from  which,  if  we 
are  to  reach  any  true  notion  of  what  Paul  actu- 
ally taught,  we  should  make  our  start. 

Professor  Beyschlag,  in  his  "  Neutestament- 
liche  Theologie,"  takes  a  view  which  is  substan- 
tially the  same  as  that  maintained  by  Professor 
Du  Bose.  In  defending  it  he  courageously  at- 
tacks passages  which  Professor  Du  Bose,  perhaps 
more  prudently,  left  unnoticed.  If  anything 
were  needed  to  show  the  unscriptural  character 
of  the  theory,  it  might  be  found  in  Professor 
Beyschlag's  interpretation,  if  such  it  may  be 
called,  of  one  of  the  passages  just  referred  to, 
namely,  Galatians  iii.  13.  In  explaining  this  pas- 
sage, he  says  :  "  In  the  crucifixion,  Christ  gave 
himself  up  to  the  uttermost  that  man  could  in- 
flict upon  him,  and  is,  thereby,  the  trustworthy 
pledge  of  God's  willingness  to  forgive.  .  .  .  Christ 
could  by  his  death  free  men  from  the  curse  of 
the  law  only  so  far  as  he  freed  them  from  the 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  97 

whole  legal  relation  to  God ;  that  is,  so  far  as  he 
changed  the  external,  threatening,  cursing  law 
into  an  impelling  law  of  spirit  and  life,  working 
from  within.  We  here  come  back  to  the  effect 
of  Christ's  death  upon  the  soul  of  the  believer, 
as  constituting  its  only  power."  ^ 

Conclusion. 

I  do  not  refer  to  these  views  in  order  to  de- 
fend or  to  criticise  them.  They  are  at  once  in- 
genious and  interesting.  So  far  as  all  except* 
the  two  last  mentioned  are  concerned,  they 
make,  however,  as  was  said  before,  no  claim  that 
they  represent  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. So  far  as  they  are  concerned,  Paul  might 
simply  have  written  that  Christ  was  set  forth  as 
a  propitiation  for  our  sins.  All  his  more  defi- 
nite statements  are  left  wholly  out  of  the  ac- 
count. We  have  merely  a  re-working  of  the  gen- 
eral theme.  What  is  important  for  us  here  is 
the  fact  that  these  modern  efforts  illustrate  the 
development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement 
throughout  the  history  of  the  church.  It  has 
been  a  theoretical  process.  The  various  theolo- 
gians, if  they  have  referred  to  the  New  Testa- 

1  Beyschlag,  Neutestanientliche  Theologie,  ii.  156. 


98  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

ment  at  all,  have  contented  themselves  for  the 
most  part  with  reference  to  one  or  two  expres- 
sions of  Paul  that  illustrated  their  view.  Some, 
like  Anselm,  have  not  done  even  this. 

I  do  not  here  dispute  the  authority  of  the 
church  and  the  possibility  of  a  development  of 
doctrine  that  shall  be  in  its  results  as  important 
as  the  statements  of  Paul  himself.  It  is  not  my 
purpose  in  this  discussion  to  ask  what  is  in  itself 
true,  but  simply  to  ask  what  Paul  actually  taught. 
.My  object  is  not  dogmatic,  but  exegetical  and 
historical.  When  we  have  discovered  what  was 
definitely  the  thought  of  Paul,  we  may  give  to  it 
what  worth  we  will. 

My  attempt  thus  far  has  been  to  show  that 
the  current  theory  of  the  manner  in  which  men 
are  justified  by  the  death  of  Christ  derives  no 
support  from  the  significance  which  had  been 
attached  to  sacrificial  rites  either  by  Gentile  or 
Jew,  and  further,  that  this  theory  derives  no  sup- 
port from  the  history  of  its  genesis  and  develop- 
ment. Indeed,  in  view  of  both  the  nature  of 
sacrifice  in  general  and  the  history  of  the  devel- 
opment of  Christian  doctrine,  the  presumption 
would  be  suggested  that  the  current  doctrine  is 
false  rather  than  that  it  is  true.     We  have  found 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  99 

that  the  sacrificial  idea  involved,  certainly  very 
rarely,  I  believe  not  at  all,  the  notion  of  penal 
substitution.  If  we  turn  to  the  history  of  doc- 
trine, we  find  that,  through  the  greater  period 
of  the  history  of  the  'church,  a  view  of  the  effi- 
ciency of  Christ's  death  prevailed  diametrically 
opposite  to  that  which  has  more  recently  been 
current,  namely,  that  it  was  a  price  paid  to 
the  devil.  The  germ  of  the  doctrine  that  suc- 
ceeded this  first  received  historic  importance 
in  the  writings  of  Anselm,  who  based  his  view 
upon  theoretical  considerations  and  not  upon  the 
language  of  the  New  Testament.  We  might  say 
that  this  doctrine  rested  at  first  solely  upon  the 
*'  convenit "  and  **  non  convenit  "  of  this  somewhat 
erratic  thinker.  The  development  of  the  doc- 
trine has  been  for  the  most  part  similar  in  na- 
ture. It  was  an  internal  development  rather 
than  an  attempt  to  discover  what  Paul  actually 
taught.  The  idea  had  been  taken  from  him  that 
in  some  way  the  death  of  Christ  served  for  the 
justification  of  man,  and  this  theme  was  wrought 
out  in  the  manner  that  seemed  to  the  theolo- 
gians from  time  to  time  most  reasonable.  When 
any  form  of  the  doctrine  was  suggested  or  de- 
fended by  reference  to  the  New  Testament,  this 


ICX)  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

procedure  was  of  a  haphazard  rather  than  of  a 
scientific  nature.  Some  striking  phrase  used  by 
Paul  would  be  seized  upon,  and  the  thought  that 
it  happened  to  suggest  maintained  with  very  lit- 
tle regard  to  his  general  teaching.  Indeed,  any 
other  method  was  hardly  possible.  Exegesis 
had  not  become  a  science.  Interpretation  of 
the  Bible  was  capricious  and  often  fantastic.  It 
is  only  in  comparatively  recent  years  that  the 
study  of  the  New  Testament  has  been  in  any 
degree  scientific.  I  conceive,  then,  that  the  fact 
that  the  doctrine  which  teaches  that  Christ  in 
some  form  or  other  suffered  the  penalty  due  to 
man,  or  paid  the  debt  due  from  him,  has  held 
possession  of  the  church  for  some  centuries,  fur- 
nishes no  presumption  as  to  the  Pauline  charac- 
ter of  this  dogma.  On  the  contrary,  I  conceive 
that  the  manner  in  which  this  general  view  arose 
and  has  developed  itself  furnishes  a  presumption 
against  its  Pauline  character.  If  a  theory  of  the 
atonement  wrought  out  of  his  own  head  by  such 
a  peculiar,  we  might  say  such  a  queer,  thinker 
as  Anselm  could  contain  in  any  sense  the  doc- 
trine which  Paul  actually  taught,  it  would  seem 
that  such  conformity  could  be  only  the  result  of 
a  wonderful   chance   or  a   stupendous    miracle. 


HISTORY  OF  DOCTRINE.  lOI 

Yet  it  is  this  conceit  of  Anselm  that  has  been 
the  germ  of  the  successive  views  which  since 
his  day  have  claimed,  with  right,  the  authority 
of  the  church,  and  which  are  still  largely  current. 
We  may,  indeed,  assume  that  at  this  point  or 
any  other  a  miracle  has  been  wrought ;  that  is, 
we  may  assume  that  the  doctrinal  development 
of  the  church  has  been  under  divine  guidance. 
It  is  obvious,  however,  that  such  a  view  could  be 
urged  in  regard  to  no  particular  time  and  to  no 
particular  doctrine.  The  doctrine  that  under 
varying  forms,  since  the  time  of  Anselm,  has 
been  specially  defended  by  the  church  has  held 
this  favored  position  for  less  than  a  half  of  our 
Christian  history,  and  is  already  showing  signs 
of  having  passed  the  maximum  point  of  its  ac- 
ceptance. It  is  losing  its  power,  and  there  is 
no  tendency,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  to  the  general 
adoption  of  any  other  doctrine  that  shall  take  its 
place.  If  it  still  held  its  place,  however,  as  it  has 
done  in  former  years,  the  doctrine  of  an  inspired 
church  could  not  be  used  in  its  favor.  Such  a 
claim  could  have  been  made  in  the  ninth  century 
in  favor  of  the  diabolical  theory  as  well  as  in  the 
nineteenth  century  in  favor  of  the  penal-substi- 
tutionary  theory.     If  the  present  age  were  the 


I02  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

last  in  the  history  of  the  church  and  of  the  world, 
there  might  be  more  reason  for  assuming  that  the 
church  had  been  guided  into  the  truth.  There 
is,  however,  no  reason  to  suppose  that  we  are 
nearing  the  end.  We  must  drop  from  our  thought 
of  the  present  period  of  doctrinal  development 
the  importance  which  is  the  result  of  our  own 
relation  to  it.  The  time  will  come  when  the 
last  two  centuries  and  the  last  eight  centuries 
will  take  their  place  by  the  side  of  the  centu- 
ries that  preceded  them,  —  the  eighteenth  and 
the  nineteenth  being  no  more  worthy  to  claim 
authority  than  the  eighth  and  the  ninth.  This 
being  so,  the  fact  that  a  certain  theory  in  regard 
to  the  atonement  has,  with  certain  modifications, 
been  accepted  by  the  church  during  the  past 
few  centuries  gives  it  no  stronger  claim  to  be 
considered  as  representing  Paul's  view  than  could 
have  been  made  for  the  doctrine  prevalent  in 
the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries. 


CHAPTER   III. 
THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW   UNSCRIPTURAL. 

Preliminary  Considerations. 

Although  the  theologians  who  have  in  suc- 
cessive ages  wrought  out  the  system  of  the 
atonement  which  is  most  widely  accepted  to- 
day did  this  with  little  attention  to  the  language 
of  the  New  Testament,  what  shall  we  say  when 
we  find  the  result  of  this  development  of  doctrine 
accepted,  with  more  or  less  modification,  by  the 
critical  students  of  the  New  Testament  in  our 
own  day  ?  The  modern  students  of  the  New 
Testament  manifest  a  learning  and  a  fairness 
which  cannot  be  too  highly  praised.  Does  not 
the  fact  that  they,  to  so  large  an  extent,  give 
to  the  traditional  view  their  indorsement  lend 
to  it  fresh  authority }  Does  it  not  imply  that 
either  the  marvellous  coincidence  or  the  stu- 
pendous miracle  of  which  I  spoke  has  been  ac- 
complished ?  All  that  can  be  said  is  that  these 
students  have  accepted  the   results  which  had 


104  ^-^^    GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

been  reached  by  an  uncritical  age.  No  other 
explanation  of  the  Pauline  phraseology  sug- 
gested itself  ;  they  therefore  undertook  to  in- 
terpret the  New  Testament  as  nearly  as  possi- 
ble in  accordance  with  the  received  doctrine  of 
the  church.  This  they  have  done  in  good  faith 
and  with  much  ingenuity.  So  far  as  their  re- 
sults are  concerned,  they  rest  upon  nothing  which 
does  not  admit  of  a  test.  Their  basis  is  clearly 
set  forth,  and  we  can  determine  for  ourselves 
what  confidence  we  may  place  in  it.  In  point  of 
fact,  the  result  is  heterogeneous.  There  is  some 
forcing  of  the  doctrine,  and  some  forcing  of  the 
language  of  the  New  Testament.  The  outcome 
is  inharmonious  and  self-contradictory.  The  tra- 
ditional theory  seems  at  a  superficial  glance  to 
conform  to  the  phraseology  of  Paul.  A  careful 
examination  shows  that  the  resemblance  is  only 
superficial,  even  so  far  as  the  texts  most  relied 
upon  are  concerned.  This  doctrine  is  like  a 
ready-made  garment,  which  may  possess  a  gen- 
eral conformity  to  the  bodily  structure  of  the 
person  who  bought  it,  but  of  which  the  most 
skilful  tailor  cannot  make  a  perfect  fit.  These 
statements  I  shall  now  proceed  to  defend  by  such 
examination  of  the  language  of  Paul  as  may  seem 
necessary  for  this  purpose. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.       I  OS 

I  must  first  express  the  great  indebtedness  of 
the  world  to  the  careful  scholarship  that  has  been 
given  to  the  New  Testament.  Though  it  has 
not,  as  I  conceive,  reached  the  true  interpreta- 
tion of  Paul's  teaching,  it  has  made  it  possible 
to  reach  this.  It  has  settled  to  a  very  large  ex- 
tent the  meaning  of  words  and  the  significance 
of  grammatical  forms.  What  Paul  said  can,  with 
the  certainty  of  a  fair  amount  of  accuracy,  be 
said  after  him  in  English.  Further,  the  study 
of  experts  has  given  us  an  accurate  idea  of  at 
least  some  aspects  of  the  spiritual  and  intellec- 
tual environment  in  the  midst  of  which  Chris- 
tianity had  its  rise.  Such  a  work,  for  instance, 
as  Weber's  "•  System  der  Palastinischen  Theo- 
logie"  is  invaluable  to  those  for  whom  are  closed 
the  original  sources  from  which  such  information 
is  derived.  By  all  these  results  the  element  of 
caprice  is  confined  within  comparatively  small 
limits.  For  myself,  I  will  say  that  in  what  fol- 
lows I  have  not  in  a  single  instance  attempted 
to  force,  or  escape  from,  the  limitations  which 
the  best  students  of  the  New  Testament  have 
established.  I  have  accepted  from  the  hands  of 
experts  the  most  exact  results  which  they  could 
offer.      Happily  I  have  been  under  no  tempta- 

UNIVERSITY  > 


I06  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

tion  to  do  Otherwise.  The  more  strictly  the 
letter  of  the  Pauline  epistles  has  been  accepted, 
the  more  clearly  did  the  statements  they  con- 
tain lend  themselves  to  the  interpretation  which 
I  was  striving  to  present.  I  think  that  Paul's 
teaching  has  been  misunderstood,  because  his 
words  have  not  been  taken  literally  enough. 
Some  preconceived  notion  of  what  tradition  has 
made  him  say,  or  of  what  the  commentator  thinks 
that  he  ought  to  have  said,  comes  between  the 
critic  and  his  text,  and  the  strict  significance  of 
his  words  has  often  been  lost  sight  of. 

I  have  affirmed  that  in  most  cases  we  can  re- 
peat Paul's  teaching  in  English,  with  the  confi- 
dence that  we  represent  it  fairly  well.  What  he 
meant  by  what  he  said  is  another  question.  The 
critical  students  of  the  New  Testament  have 
made  the  interpretation  of  Paul's  teaching  possi- 
ble. In  some  most  important  matters  I  believe 
that  they  have  not  interpreted  it  aright.  They 
are,  as  I  conceive,  like  expert  woodsmen  who 
are  trying  to  force  their  way  through  a  diffi- 
cult region.  They  have  started  in  at  the  point 
which  tradition  indicated,  and  have  fought  their 
way  manfully  and  skilfully.  They  have  hewn 
a   path   through   jungles  ;    they  have   somehow 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      lO/ 

bridged  chasms,  and  have  climbed  over,  or  wound 
about,  opposing  cliffs.  All  that  I  claim  is,  that 
in  my  wanderings  I  have  happened  upon  a  trail 
by  which  advance  is  so  pleasant  and  easy  that 
I  cannot  help  believing  it  to  be  the  original  one 
that  was  blazed  by  Paul  himself.  Without  a 
tithe  of  the  woodcraft  which  these  heroic  work- 
ers possess,  I  yet  venture  to  ask  them  just  to 
try  this  new  path,  and  see  if  it  is  not  vastly 
easier  than  the  one  along  which  they  have  been 
struggling. 

In  the  present  chapter  I  shall  point  out  two 
or  three  of  the  difficulties  to  which  I  have  just 
referred.  I  shall  try  to  show  that  the  traditional 
interpretation  runs  against  obstacles  at  every 
turn.  In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  show  how  the 
interpretation  that  I  suggest  adapts  itself  at 
every  point  to  the  most  literal  treatment  of  the 
language  of  the  apostle  and  of  his  school. 

Two  Assumptions. 

Before  entering  upon  this  examination,  it  is 
important  to  recognize  two  principles  which  may 
be  taken  for  granted  at  the  outset.  One  of  these 
is  the  assumption  that  the  thought  of  Paul,  so 
far  as  we  are  here  concerned  with  it,  was  definite 


I08  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

and  permanent.  He  referred,  indeed,  to  the 
death  of  Christ  in  many  ways  and  in  many  dif- 
ferent relations.  Sometimes  his  reference  to 
it  was  literal,  often  it  was  symbolical.  Thus 
the  death  of  Christ  constantly  assumed  in  his 
thought  a  fresh  significance,  and  manifested  it- 
self under  varying  aspects.  So  far,  however,  as 
Paul  used  forensic  language  in  regard  to  the 
death  of  Christ,  so  far,  that  is,  as  he  had  to  do 
with  the  abolition  of  the  law  and  the  remission 
of  sins,  we  must  assume  that  his  thought  was 
definite  and  practically  unchanging.  So  far  as 
this  aspect  of  the  death  of  Christ  is  concerned, 
we  must  assume  that,  in  the  words  of  Paul,  we 
have  to  do  with  no  mere  figure  of  speech,  but 
with  what  he  regarded  as  a  definite  fact,  and  with 
results  that  he  believed  actually  to  flow  from 
it.  Nothing  less  fixed  or  definite  than  this 
would  have  sufficed  for  the  accomplishment  of 
such  a  mighty  revolution  as  that  which  was  pro- 
duced by  the  preaching  of  Paul.  We  assume, 
then,  that  all  the  language  used  by  Paul  in  re- 
gard to  the  great  matters  under  consideration 
meant  substantially  the  same  thing. 

In  what  I  have  just  said,  I  have  spoken  of  the 
abolition  of  the  law  and  of  the  remission  of  sins. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.       IO9 

as  though  they  were  parts  of  the  same  transac- 
tion. Paul  presents  two  aspects  of  the  death  of 
Christ :  the  forensic  and  the  moral.  The  foren- 
sic includes  the  two  elements  just  named,  the 
abolition  of  the  law  and  the  remission  of  sins. 
It  could  hardly  be  expected  that  the  death  of 
Christ  should  have  had  two  forensic  results, 
which  were  independent  of  one  another.  My 
assumption  is,  then,  that  in  Paul's  thought  the 
one  forensic  effect  of  the  death  of  Christ  in- 
cluded both  the  results,  as  different  aspects  of 
the  same  thing.  Perhaps,  however,  I  should 
rather  call  this  a  presumption,  leaving  the 
stronger  word  **  assumption  "  to  refer  to  the  fact 
that  in  the  thought  of  Paul  the  forensic  aspect 
of  the  case  was  always  the  same. 

The  second  principle  that  we  must  assume  is, 
that  in  trying  to  reach  this  fixed  and  definite 
thought  of  Paul,  the  expressions  that  are  more 
abstract  are  to  be  explained  by  those  that  are 
more  concrete.  A  little  thought  will  make  the 
truth  and  the  importance  of  this  assumption 
obvious.  The  more  abstract  statements  admit 
of  various  significations.  When  it  is  said,  for 
instance,  in  general,  that  we  are  saved  or  justi- 
fied through  the  death  or  through  the  blood  of 


no  THE   GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Christ,  there  is  no  hint  as  to  the  precise  man- 
ner in  which  this  result  is  accomplished.  Such 
passages  admit  of  various  explanations.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  more  concrete  a  passage  is,  the 
fewer  explanations  are  possible.  One  that  is  ab- 
solutely and  definitely  concrete  would  admit  of 
only  one  explanation.  Such  a  passage,  if  indeed 
such  an  one  may  be  found  to  exist,  should  be 
used  to  give  a  definite  significance  to  the  state- 
ments that  are  more  abstract. 

I  imagine  that,  as  thus  stated,  both  of  these 
assumptions  will  be  granted.  In  fact,  however, 
the  second  has  not  been  practically  recognized. 
The  theologians,  even  the  commentators,  have 
to  a  very  large  extent  based  their  results  upon 
the  more  general  and  abstract  statements  of 
Paul.  The  more  concrete  statements  have  been 
too  often  touched  lightly  upon,  as  something 
accidental,  or  at  least  as  something  not  essential. 
Even  Professor  Pfleiderer,  who  holds  more  closely 
than  most  to  the  specific  language  of  Paul,  ex- 
presses with  great  frankness  the  slight  estima- 
tion in  which  Paul's  definite  argumentation  is 
held  by  him.  Professor  Pfleiderer  says  of  Paul, 
that  *'  he  proves  his  thesis  through  exegetical 
deductions,  which  are  rather  far-fetched  and  not 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      Ill 

always  quite  conclusive,  in  regard  to  which  it  is 
very  obvious  that  they  are  used  simply  to  give 
an  outward  support  to  what  the  apostle  held 
upon  quite  other  and  inner  grounds."  ^  I  think 
it  may  be  said  with  truth  that  the  theologians 
have  too  often  fancied  that  they  understood  the 
matter  better  than  Paul  himself.  My  simple 
assumption  is  that  Paul  knew  what  he  was  talk- 
ing about,  and  that  he  meant  precisely  what  he 
said  ;  and  that  if  we  want  to  understand  him, 
the  one  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to  follow  his  own 
reasoning  as  closely  and  as  literally  as  we  can. 
If  any  reader  doubts  whether  this  method  will 
lead  to  any  good  result,  I  beg  that  he  will  at 
least  be  willing  to  make  the  experiment. 

The  "  Curse'''  of  Christ. 

The  passage  which  is  the  most  definite  and  con- 
crete of  any  in  the  epistles  of  Paul  in  regard  to 
the  matter  that  we  are  considering  is  the  famous 
thirteenth  verse  of  the  third  chapter  of  the  Epis- 
tle to  the  Galatians.  "  Christ  redeemed  us  from 
the  curse  of  the  law,  having  become  a  curse  for 
us,  for  it  is  written.  Cursed  is  every  one  that 
hangeth  on  a  tree."     I  have  said  that  this'pas- 

1  Paulinismus^  second  edition,  p.  6. 


112  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

sage  is  the  most  definite  in  the  writings  of  Paul 
in  regard  to  the  atonement  that  Paul  believed 
to  have  been  accomplished  through  the  death  of 
Christ.  This  is  true  in  regard  to  its  statement 
of  the  curse  which  Christ  underwent,  through 
which  the  Christian  was  redeemed  from  the  law. 
In  what  manner  his  endurance  of  the  curse 
worked  for  man's  redemption  it  does  not  tell  us. 
This  we  shall  have  to  seek  elsewhere. 

The  curse  which  Christ  underwent  was  that 
pronounced  against  all  "  who  hang  upon  a  tree." 
In  the  Jewish  law,  as  among  all  earlier  peoples, 
many  things  were  associated  together  which  we 
are  in  the  habit  of  distinguishing.  Different  kinds 
of  commandment  and  of  offences,  of  purity  and 
of  impurity,  were  all  placed  upon  the  same  level. 
These  commands  and  these  different  forms  of 
impurity  we  may  divide  into  those  that  were 
strictly  religious,  those  that  were  ethical,  and 
those  that  were  ceremonial.  We  have  examples 
of  all  these  in  the  ten  commandments.  "  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  "  is  purely  religious. 
The  command,  **  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  is  ethical. 
The  command,  "  Thou  shalt  remember  the  Sab- 
bath day  to  keep  it  holy,"  is  ceremonial.  The 
Hebrews,  we  may  suppose,  made  no  distinction 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      II3 

between  these  different  kinds  of  commandment. 
They  all  rested  upon  the  same  authority.  Even 
to  the  Puritan  in  England  and  in  America  there 
was  no  difference  between  these  commandments. 
To  break  the  Sabbath  was  as  truly  a  crime  as 
theft  or  murder. 

I  have  used  the  word  "  ceremonial "  for  lack 
of  a  better,  and  in  a  sense  negative  rather  than 
positive.  I  have  meant  to  say  that  there  were 
laws  which  were  without  religious  or  ethical  sig- 
nificance. There  were,  corresponding  to  these, 
forms  of  purity  and  impurity  which  were  also 
without  religious  or  moral  signification.  Some  of 
these  may  have  had  originally  a  hygienic  value  ; 
but  for  the  most  it  would  be  impossible  to  give 
any  explanation  which  would  not  be  conjectural 
and  arbitrary.  Such  forms  of  purity  and  impur- 
ity had  no  relation  to  the  purpose  which  accom- 
panied the  polluting  act,  or  even  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  those  who  were  concerned.  The 
regulations  under  which  such  varied  forms  of 
pollution  become  possible  may  be  summed  up 
under  what  it  has  become  common  to  designate 
as  the  law  of  "Taboo."  The  word  is  a  helpful 
one,  though  it  stands  for  a  confused  mass  of  things 
differing  widely  among  themselves,  about  which 
we  know  accurately  little  or  nothing. 


114  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

Of  this  sort  was  the  curse  that  is  referred  to 
in  the  statement  of  Paul  which  I  have  just 
quoted.  It  is  generally  understood  that  the  pas- 
sage from  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  that  Paul 
quotes  referred  to  the  habit  of  hanging  certain 
criminals,  in  some  way  or  other,  after  they  had 
been  otherwise  killed.^  However  this  may  be, 
the  persons  thus  suspended  were  in  the  eye  of 
the  law  impure,  and  if  they  remained  in  this  po- 
sition over  night,  the  land  would  suffer  from  the 
presence  of  these  impure  objects.  They  were 
"  cursed  before  God."  That  this  view  of  the 
impurity  attached  to  crucifixion  continued  may 
be  seen  in  the  passage  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
which  tells  how  the  execution  of  Jesus  and  the 
thieves  was  hurried,  because  the  next  Sabbath 
was  a  high  day.^ 

We  can  now  understand  the  nature  of  the 
curse  that  Christ  underwent.  It  arose  from 
the  form  of  his  death.  It  was  because  he  was 
crucified  that  he  was  accursed.  We  here  reach 
the  centre  of  Paul's  thought  and  the  essential 
thing  in  his  argument.  It  is  a  thing  that  has 
been   too  often  overlooked  ;    but   so  far   as  we 

1  Deuteronomy  xxi.  22,  23. 

2  John's  Gospel,  xix.  31. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      II5 

overlook  it,  we  fail  utterly  to  understand  what 
Paul  is  talking  about.  It  is  important  to  notice 
that  Christ  was  accursed  because  he  was  cruci- 
fied. He  was  not  crucified  because  he  was  ac- 
cursed. 

We  see  now  that  very  important  results  may 
follow  from  the  second  assumption  that  was 
made  above  ;  —  the  assumption,  namely,  that  the 
more  concrete  statements  made  by  Paul  must 
be  used  to  explain  the  more  abstract.  When- 
ever the  death  of  Christ  or  the  blood  of  Christ 
is  referred  to  as  the  means  by  which  the  Chris- 
tian is  justified,  or  by  which  atonement  has  been 
made,  such  references  are  to  be  explained  by  the 
passage  we  have  just  considered.  In  this  way 
and  in  no  other  did  Christ,  in  the  thought  of 
Paul,  undergo  for  man  the  curse  of  the  law.  The 
manner  of  his  death  made  him  ceremonially  im- 
pure. 

We  shall  later  ask  what  are  the  positive  con- 
clusions to  be  drawn  from  this  fact.  At  present 
we  have  to  use  it  negatively,  and  to  notice  how 
the  current  theory  of  the  atonement  is  affected 
by  it. 

The  traditional  theory,  being  based  upon  the 
more  abstract  statements  of  Paul,  is  itself,  in  the 


Il6  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

form  in  which  it  is  generally  held,  abstract,  and 
thus  admits  of  various  interpretations.  The  cen- 
tral article  of  belief  is  that  Christ  bore  the  pen- 
alty which  men  had  deserved.  What  was  pre- 
cisely the  nature  of  the  penalty  that  he  bore  is 
explained  in  various  ways.  Thus  Professor  Shedd 
held  that  "  the  essence  of  the  atonement  is  in 
the  suffering  "  ^  of  Christ.  In  this  suffering  was 
included  not  only  the  pain  connected  with  his 
death,  but  that  of  his  entire  life.  Dr.  Alfred  Cave, 
on  the  other  hand,  insists  that  the  death  of  Christ 
was  the  essential  thing.^  In  this  he  goes  back  to 
the  thought  of  Anselm.  Christ,  being  sinless, 
needed  not  to  die,  and  by  dying  he  thus  under- 
went that  which  could  not  have  been  demanded 
of  him.  Dr.  Cave  adds  to  this  the  fact  that  to 
Paul  death  was  the  penalty  of  human  transgres- 
sion. Christ,  being  without  sin,  in  dying  suf- 
fered what  he  had  not  deserved,  and  bore  for 
those  who  should  believe  in  him  the  penalty  of 
their  sins.  Dr.  Cave  claims  that  his  view  is 
based  upon  induction,  that  is,  upon  a  careful  and 
comparative  study  of  the  utterances  of  the  New 
Testament.     He,  however,  seems  to  have  over- 

1  Dogmatic  Theology,  P-  414,  et passim. 

2  Scriptural  Doctrine  of  Sacrifice,  pp.  312  ff. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW    UNSCRIPTURAL.     11/ 

looked  the  passages  that  throw  most  light  upon 
the  matter ;  or  at  least  to  have  given  them  only 
superficial  attention. 

The  passage  in  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
which  we  have  been  considering  is  fatal  to  both 
these  theories.  So  far  as  Professor  Shedd's 
notion  is  concerned,  that  the  suffering  was  the 
essential  thing,  it  is  obvious  that  this  could  have 
had  no  place  in  the  thought  of  Paul.  The  curse 
that  Christ  bore  resulted  from  the  form  of  his 
death.  In  regard  to  the  original  statement  in 
the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  the  explanation  gen- 
erally given  is,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  bodies 
of  those  already  slain  were  hanged  upon  the  tree, 
and  thus  became  impure  and  a  source  of  impur- 
ity. The  suffering  had  been  already  passed  when 
the  act  that  was  analogous  to  crucifixion  took 
place.  Neither  could  the  death  of  Christ  be,  as 
Dr.  Cave  insists,  the  element  in  which  the  es- 
sence of  the  act  consisted.  If  the  theory  of  Dr. 
Cave  were  correct,  it  would  not  have  mattered 
what  manner  of  death  Christ  underwent.  He 
might  have  died  in  his  bed,  or  by  any  accident, 
or  by  any  other  form  of  execution,  and  the  result 
would  have  been  the  same.  In  Paul's  thought 
he  bore  the  curse  for  his  followers  by  being  cru- 


Il8  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

cified.  When  Paul  speaks  of  Christ  as  the  cruci- 
fied, he  means  precisely  this.  It  was  this  form 
of  death  which  the  law  pronounced  accursed,  and 
we  have  no  right  to  put  death  in  general  in  the 
place  of  this,  and  imagine  that  Paul's  reasoning 
would  still  hold. 

So  far  as  the  more  general  statements  of  the 
current  doctrine  are  concerned,  they  are  so  very 
vague  and  involve  so  closely  other  aspects  of  the 
case,  that  the  passage  that  we  have  been  con- 
sidering cannot,  taken  by  itself,  be  satisfactorily 
used  as  the  test  of  their  truth.  I  am  inclined  to 
think,  however,  that  in  many  cases  in  which  the 
traditional  doctrine  is  expressed  in  a  general  way, 
either  the  view  held  by  Dr.  Shedd  or  that  held  by 
Dr.  Cave  is  really  assumed,  or  that  both  the  suf- 
fering and  the  death  of  Christ  are  assumed  as  the 
necessary  basis  of  the  transaction.  Sometimes 
the  idea  of  a  curse  of  which  the  crucifixion  is  in 
some  sense  the  expression  is  thought  of.  Of  this 
we  shall  see  examples  later.  I  have  seen  no  state- 
ment of  the  doctrine  which  recognized  the  simple 
and  clear  utterance  of  Paul,  namely,  that  Christ 
became  accursed  solely  by  the  fact  that  he  was 
crucified. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCKIPTURAL.      II9 

The  Abolition  of  the  Law. 

As,  however,  it  is  difficult  to  apply  to  merely 
general  statements  the  test  of  this  passage  in 
such  a  way  as  to  demonstrate  their  unpauline 
character,  we  shall  be  forced  to  take  in  connec- 
tion with  it  a  passage  from  the  same  epistle, 
which  describes  another  aspect  of  the  death  of 
Christ.  The  statement  which  we  have  now  to 
introduce  is  found  in  the  nineteenth  and  twen- 
tieth verses  of  the  second  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  :  "  For  I  through  the  law  died 
unto  the  law,  that  I  might  live  unto  God.  I  have 
been  crucified  with  Christ." 

This  passage,  like  the  one  before  quoted,  has 
been  made  prominent  in  the  theories  and  the 
discussions  of  theologians  ;  but  like  that  it  has 
been  often  treated  in  a  vague  and  general  way, 
with  little  regard  to  its  special  significance.  It 
is  the  complement  of  the  other  passage,  indicat- 
ing the  manner  in  which  the  fact  that  Christ 
bore  the  curse  works  for  the  redemption  of  the 
Christian  from  the  curse  of  the  law  ;  as  the  other 
stated  the  nature  of  the  curse  which  Christ  bore. 

We  will  first  apply  this  verse  to  the  current 
doctrine  as  it  is  generally  held,  and  will  then 


I20  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

consider  the  manner  in  which  it  and  the  passage 
previously  considered  have  been  explained  by 
those  who  have  given  them  special  attention. 

The  doctrine  as  generally  held  assumes  that 
Christ  in  his  death  bore  the  penalty  for  men's 
sins,  and  that  therefore  those  who  believe  in  him 
are  free  from  the  penalty  that  they  deserved, 
and  are  also  free  from  any  obligation  to  obey  the 
Jewish  law.  Let  us  see  how  this  agrees  with 
the  statement  of  Paul  just  quoted. 

This  statement  of  Paul  involves  two  elements. 
One  is  that  the  Christian  is  free  from  the  law ; 
the  other  is  that  this  freedom  from  the  law  is 
reached  through  the  law  itself.  He  says,  "I 
through  the  law  died  unto  the  law."  We  will, 
for  convenience,  consider  first  the  second  of 
these  principles,  namely,  that  the  abrogation  of 
the  law  comes  through  the  law  itself. 

The  theologians  claim  that  the  Christian  is 
free  from  the  law,  because  Christ  has  suffered 
the  punishment  which  the  sins  of  his  followers 
had  deserved.  As  it  is  more  commonly  put,  the 
sacrifices  appointed  by  the  law  were  the  types 
of  which  the  death  of  Christ  was  the  antitype. 
When  the  antitype  was  accomplished,  the  types 
and  all  the  observances  of  the  law  became  obso- 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL,      121 

lete.  This  result  is  obviously,  however,  nothing 
that  has  been  reached  through  the  law  itself.  It 
is  not  a  fulfilment  of  the  law,  but  an  abrogation 
of  it.  The  sacrifices,  for  instance,  may  have 
pointed  to  the  great  sacrifice  on  Calvary  ;  but 
there  was  in  them  nothing  to  lead  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  this.  The  law  held  its  place  till  a 
mightier  than  it  came,  and  then  it  gave  way 
before  him.  In  all  this  there  is  nothing  to  ex- 
plain the  cry  of  Paul,  "  I  through  the  law  died 
unto  the  law." 

It  has  been  said,  indeed,  that  through  the  ed- 
ucational effect  of  the  law  those  placed  under  it 
had  reached  a  point  where  they  no  longer  needed 
it,  and  thus  died  to  the  law  through  the  law ;  as, 
since  death  is  the  natural  end  of  life,  we  may 
be  said  through  life  to  die  to  life.  Since  "the 
law,"  it  has  been  urged,  "hath  been  our  tutor 
to  bring  us  unto  Christ,"  ^  when  it  has  brought 
us  to  Christ  its  function  is  accomplished.  Itself 
leads  us  out  of  itself.  There  could  be  no  better 
example  than  this  of  the  vague  way  in  which 
Paul's  clear  and  direct  utterances  are  often  inter- 
preted. In  point  of  fact,  men  had  not  through 
the  law  become  so  trained  that  they  could  go  on 

1  Galatians  iii.  24. 


122  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

without  it.  It  was  not  like  a  school  which  dis- 
misses its  scholars  when  they  have  become  per- 
fect. The  law  had,  according  to  Paul/  shown  its 
absolute  inadequacy  to  produce  this  result.  What, 
then,  did  Paul  mean  when  he  said  that  the  law 
had  been  the  tutor  to  bring  men  to  Christ }  We 
may  try  to  answer  this  question  later.  All  that 
concerns  us  now  is  that  it  could  not  have  been 
by  educating  men  up  to  the  point  where  it  was 
needless.  The  law  failed  to  make  men  righteous. 
It  was  suddenly  superseded.  "  What  the  law 
could  not  do,  in  that  it  was  weak  through  the 
flesh,  God,  sending  his  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of 
sinful  flesh  and  as  an  offering  for  sin,  condemned 
sin  in  the  flesh."  ^  Paul  says  that  this  annulling 
of  the  law  was  accomplished  by  the  law  itself.  I 
maintain  that  the  current  interpretations  of  his 
teaching  give  no  hint  as  to  how  this  paradoxical 
statement  can  be  true.  Till  this  statement,  which 
Bengel  called  summa  ac  medulla  Christimiismi^ 
presents  a  clear  and  definite  meaning,  one  fitted 
to  hold  good  in  a  court  of  law,  we  have  no  idea 
of  Paul's  doctrine. 

It  is  further  difficult  to  see  how,  according  to 

1  Romans  viii.  36,  et passim.  ^  Romans  viii.  3. 

*  See  Meyer,  a.  1. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      1 23 

the  current  theory  of  Paul's  teaching,  the  Chris- 
tian could,  in  any  way,  have  become  free  of  the 
law.  Granted  all  that  the  theory  claims,  that 
Christ  actually  suffered  the  penalty  of  the  world's 
sin,  what  is  there  in  this  that  should  lead  to  the 
abrogation  of  the  divinely  appointed  law  ?  Be- 
cause at  the  cost  of  the  blood  of  Christ  men  were 
relieved  from  the  penalty  that  they  most  justly 
had  deserved,  is  that  any  reason  why  they  should 
disregard  the  law  against  which  they  had  sinned  ? 
Was  the  law  to  be  obeyed  simply  to  escape  its 
penalty ;  and  because  provision  has  been  made 
against  this,  does  the  law  itself  become  of  no 
account  ?  We  might  understand  why  the  typi- 
cal sacrifices  should  be  no  longer  needed  when 
the  antitype  had  come ;  but  why  should  other 
portions  of  the  law,  —  that  of  the  Sabbath  and 
of  circumcision,  for  instance,  —  things  that  had 
no  relation  to  the  atonement,  why  should  these 
also  be  given  up  ? 

In  a  word,  the  law  was  to  Paul  a  divinely  ap- 
pointed thing.  Only  the  power  that  ordained  it 
could  repeal  it.  Only  the  law  itself  could  put 
an  end  to  itself.  When  Paul  said,  "I  through 
the  law  died  unto  the  law,"  he  described  the 
only  process  by  which  for  him  the  law  could  be 


124  ^-^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

annulled.  The  current  view  fails  to  show  how 
the  law  put  an  end  to  itself,  and  thus  how  it  was 
actually  done  away  with. 

The  Interpretation  of  Pfleiderer  and  Weizsdcker. 

We  have  thus  considered  in  relation  to  the 
two  passages  which  have  been  quoted  from  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians  the  current  view  as  it 
is  presented  by  theologians  in  general.  These 
can  elaborate  their  doctrines  with  greater  or  less 
attention  to  the  language  of  the  New  Testament, 
as  they  may  find  it  convenient  or  interesting. 
The  case  is  different  with  the  theologians  who 
make  a  special  study  of  the  New  Testament. 
They  can  overlook  nothing.  We  have  now  to 
see  how  such  writers  reconcile  the  current  theo- 
logical views  with  the  passages  from  Paul  which 
we  have  been  considering. 

Midway  between  the  theologians,  as  such,  and 
the  commentators  stands  Professor  Pfleiderer, 
whose  "  Paulinismus  "  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting and  suggestive  works  upon  this  theme. 

Professor  Pfleiderer  urges  that  in  the  view  of 
Paul  the  law  was  no  longer  binding,  because  it 
was  no  longer  necessary.  He  says  :  "  If  the 
crucifixion  of  Christ  is  recognized  as  the  divinely 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      12$ 

appointed  means  by  which  righteousness  is  to  be 
obtained,  then  it  follows  that  the  law  is  no  longer 
the  means.  The  crucifixion  of  Christ  is  thus  the 
end  of  the  law."  ^  Further,  Professor  Pfleiderer 
tells  us,  the  law  is  not  only  needless  by  the  side 
of  the  means  of  salvation  offered  by  Christ ;  the 
two  methods  are  wholly  incompatible.  He  says  : 
"That  could  not  be  a  righteousness  according  to 
the  law  which  was  brought  by  one  who  by  the 
law  was  accursed.  That  must  be  a  wholly  new 
'righteousness,  a  righteousness  without  any  rela- 
tion to  the  law.  .  .  .  Under  such  a  Messiah  the 
whole  religious  world  of  the  Jews  must  pass 
away  and  give  place  to  a  new."  ^ 

Professor  Weizsacker  also  assumes  that  in  the 
presence  of  the  righteousness  that  is  by  faith, 
the  law  would  disappear  of  itself.  He  says  : 
"  As  through  the  death  of  Jesus  the  sin  in  the 
flesh  is  destroyed,  so  is  the  law  destroyed."  ^ 
And  again  :  "  As  through  Christ  man  has  died 
to  sin,  he  has  died  to  the  law  also ;  he  is  free 
from  it." 

The  view  of  these  eminent  writers  that  the 

1  Pfleiderer 's  Der  Paulinismus  (second  edition),  pp.  6  f. 

2  Ibid.  p.  II. 

-3  Weizsacker's    Das   Apostolische    Zeitalter   der    Christlichen 
Kir c he,  p.  136. 


126  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

law  ceased  simply  because  another  way  of  salva- 
tion was  recognized  seems  to  me  to  meet  neither 
the  probabilities  of  the  case  nor  the  teaching  of 
Paul.  In  the  first  place,  it  does  not  meet  the 
probabilities  of  the  case.  I  can  conceive  that 
the  law,  being  superseded,  should  gradually  be- 
come less  and  less  recognized,  and  that  it  should 
thus  fade  out  by  slow  degrees.  I  cannot  con- 
ceive that  the  presence  of  another  way  of  salva- 
tion should  lead  to  that  sudden  and  absolute 
dismission  of  the  entire  law  which  we  find  to 
have  been  accomplished  in  the  case  of  Paul. 
In  the  second  place,  it  is  certain  that  such  a 
view  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  sharp, 
ringing  cry  of  Paul :  "  I  through  the  law  died 
unto  the  law."  ^  With  Paul's  view  of  the  divine 
authority  of  the  law,  there  was  no  place  for  rea- 
soning whether  it  was  of  any  further  use  or  not. 
It  was  not  for  him  to  question  or  decide.  It  was 
for  him  simply  to  obey  until  release  should  come 
through  the  law  itself.  This  cry  of  Paul  must 
have  referred  to  no  general  incompatibility,  but 
to  something  as  definite  as  the  cry  itself.  No- 
tice the  force  of  the  aorist  in  this  passage :  "  I 
died  to  the  law."     This  refers  to  a  moment,  to 

1  Galatians  ii.  19. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      12/ 

an  act.  It  implies  that,  so  far  as  the  Christian 
is  concerned,  the  death  on  the  cross,  by  its  es- 
sential nature,  suddenly  abolished  the  law. 

As  to  the  method  by  which  the  death  of  Christ 
took  the  place  of  the  punishment  which  the  sin- 
ner had  deserved,  Pfleiderer's  statements  lack 
the  clearness  which  marks  the  greater  part  of 
his  discussion.  He  says  of  the  words  which 
describe  Christ  as  having  been  made  a  curse 
for  us,  that  they  "do  not  say  that  Christ  be- 
came personally  an  accursed  one  or  the  object  of 
the  divine  wrath,  since,  on  the  contrary,  he  as 
the  sinless  Son  of  God  has  been  the  object  of  the 
unchanging  love  of  God  ;  but  they  say  only  that 
Christ  allowed  to  be  fulfilled  upon  himself  the 
curse  of  the  punishment  of  death  to  which  the 
sinful  world  was  doomed.  Since  he  died  the 
death  on  the  cross,  which  by  the  law  itself  is 
expressly  branded  as  the  death  of  malefactors, 
he  has  given  to  the  law  the  required  atonement 
which  it  demanded  for  sin  ;  and  because  the  sin 
wa§  not  his  but  ours,  he  accomplished  the  atone- 
ment in  our  stead,  and  thereby  redeemed  us  from 
the  threatened  curse  of  the  law  which  other- 
wise would  have  rested  upon  us."  ^ 

1  Pfleiderer's  PauUnismus  (second  edition),  pp.  135  f. 


128  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL, 

This  passage  seems  to  me  to  present  a  confu- 
sion of  ideas  rather  than  anything  that  the  mind 
can  grasp  distinctly.  So  far  as  the  first  part  of 
the  passage  is  concerned,  it  is  true  that  Paul 
does  not  say  that  Christ  was  the  object  of  the 
divine  wrath.  He  does  say,  however,  that  Christ 
was  himself  accursed ;  for  no  expression  could 
state  this  more  strongly  than  that  which  says 
that  he  "  became  a  curse."  As  the  passage  that 
I  have  quoted  from  Professor  Pfleiderer  goes  on, 
it  is  not  clear  in  what  way  Christ  is  supposed  to 
have  borne  the  penalty  of  human  sin.  In  one 
line  we  are  told  that  he  took  the  punishment  of 
death  upon  himself,  which  seems  to  imply  a 
view  similar  to  that  of  Dr.  Cave  and  of  Anselm, 
namely,  that  death  is  the  punishment  of  sin,  and 
that  Christ  in  dying  suffered  that  which  he  had 
not  deserved.  In  the  next  line  the  fact  that  this 
death  was  a  shameful  one,  being  that  on  the 
cross,  is  specified  as  the  means  by  which  the 
penalty  of  the  law  was  fulfilled.  These  two  ideas 
are  not  only  distinct  from  one  another;  they-are 
incompatible.  If  death  was  the  penalty  which 
man  deserved,  but  which  Christ  bore  without 
deserving  it,  we  have  something  complete  in  it- 
self.    It  does  not  matter  by  what  d^ath  he  died. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      1 29 

Whatever  shame  or  curse  was  specially  attached 
to  the  cross  can  add  nothing  to  the  significance 
of  the  transaction.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
special  obloquy  attached  to  the  cross  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  transaction,  it  must  have 
had  everything  to  do  with  it.  In  this  case,  Christ 
did  not  suffer  what  was  due  to  man.  It  was  a 
suffering  peculiar  to  himself  which,  in  some  way, 
took  the  place  of  what  man  had  deserved.  Fur- 
ther, the  law  does  not  say  that  death  by  the 
cross  is  a  malefactor's  death.  It  says  that  he 
that  hangs  upon  a  tree  is  accursed.  Further,  it 
is  not  true  that  Christ  had  not  exposed  himself 
to  this  curse.  He  had  exposed  himself  to  it 
without  his  will,  it  is  true,  in  the  fact  that  he 
was  crucified.  I  repeat  what  I  said  in  substance 
before.  The  law  does  not  say  the  accursed  are 
crucified,  but  that  the  crucified  are  accursed. 
Christ  in  being  crucified  became,  on  his  own 
account,  the  object  of  the  curse.  Primarily  he 
did  not  suffer  a  curse  that  belonged  to  men ;  he 
suffered  one  which  was  due  to  himself,  because 
he  found  himself  in  the  position .  against  which 
the  curse  of  the  law  is  uttered. 


I30  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Meyer  s  Interpretation. 

In  his  "  Paulinismus,"  Professor  Pfleiderer  de- 
velops, with  more  or  less  freedom,  what  he  con- 
ceived to  be  the  ideas  of  Paul.  He  has,  of  course, 
to  refer  to  the  language  of  Paul.  He  is  not 
forced,  however,  to  follow  this,  step  by  step. 
This  complete  and  minute  examination  is  what 
the  commentator  of  the  New  Testament  is  obliged 
to  make ;  and  we  might  expect  that  this  neces- 
sity of  a  minute  examination  of  Paul's  utterances, 
on  the  one  side,  and  the  supposed  necessity  of 
harmonizing  them  with  the  traditional,  theolo- 
gical notions,  on  the  other,  would  accomplish  a 
result  still  more  confused  and  unintelligible.  I 
do  not  mean  that  this  necessity  is  anything  ex- 
ternal, laid  upon  the  commentator  from  without, 
but  that,  assuming  the  traditional  view  to  be  the 
true  one,  he  feels  obliged  to  explain,  if  possible, 
the  statements  of  Paul  in  accordance  with  this. 

As  we  took  the  work  of  Pfleiderer  as  being 
the  most  recent  and  the  best  special  work  on  the 
subject,  so  we  will  take  "  Meyer's  Commentary  " 
as  being  the  best  and  most  widely  recognized 
work  of  its  class. 

I  dislike  to  make  what  might  seem  flippant 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL,      131 

criticism  on  works  to  which  I  am  so  much  in- 
debted ;  but  the  matter  appears  to  me  so  demon- 
strably clear  and  certain  that  I  must  simply  pre- 
sent it  in  the  only  way  that  is  possible  to  me. 

In  his  discussion  of  the  matter,  Meyer  intro- 
duces two  wholly  different  conceptions  without 
apparently  perceiving  their  irreconcilable  char- 
acter. He  speaks  of  Christ  as  actually  becoming 
by  his  crucifixion  the  object  of  the  divine  om?- 
Why  Meyer  uses  the  word  opyrj  instead  of  "wrath  " 
is  not  clear  ;  for  it  is  a  word  that  is  never  used 
in  the  New  Testament  to  express  the  relation 
between  Christ  and  the  Father.  On  the  contrary, 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  we  read  that 
Christ  "  gave  himself  up  for  us,  an  offering  and  a 
sacrifice  to  God  for  an  odor  of  a  sweet  smell."  2 
This  expression  refers  to  the  crucifixion,  and 
would  appear  to  exclude  the  idea  of  wrath,  whether 
expressed  in  Greek  or  English.  In  Meyer's 
Commentary,  this  passage  is  referred  to  in  a 
note,  with  an  unsatisfactory  suggestion  of  the 
manner  in  which  it  may  be  reconciled  with  the 
idea  that  he  was  at  the  moment  an  object  of 
wrath.  That  Christ  could  stand  at  the  same  mo- 
ment as  an  object  of  the  divine  wrath  and  as  a 

^  Meyer  on  Galatians  iii.  13.  ^  Ephesians  v.  2. 


132  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

sacrifice  of  sweet  odor  is  impossible.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  Professor  Pfleiderer  discards 
the  notion  of  wrath,  although  he  still  holds  Christ 
to  have  borne  the  penalty  of  the  world's  sin. 
In  connection  with  this  notion  of  the  divine 
anger,  Meyer  introduces  the  conception  of  an 
offence  against  the  law  which  demands  a  certain 
penalty,  and  is  satisfied  when  this  penalty  has 
been  fulfilled.  "  Because,  now  that  the  law  has 
accomplished  in  his  case  its  rights,  the  bond  of 
union  which  joined  him  to  the  law  is  broken." 
In  the  Christian,  who  is  said  to  be  "  crucified 
with  Christ,"  ''the  curse  of  the  law  is  likewise 
fulfilled,  so  that  in  virtue  of  his  ethical  fellow- 
ship in  the  death  of  Jesus,  he  knows  himself  to 
be  dead  Sta  voi^ov,  and  consequently  at  the  same 
time  dead  to  the  law!'  ^ 

What  is  meant  in  this  passage  by  the  words 
"ethical  fellowship,"  through  which  the  Chris- 
tian is  crucified  with  Christ  and  shares  the  bene- 
fit of  his  suffering  the  curse  of  the  law,  is,  I  con- 
fess, to  me  wholly  incomprehensible.  Another 
thing  that  is  incomprehensible  is  the  relation 
between  the  divine  anger,  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  law  which  is  silenced  when  its  penalty  is 

1  Meyer  on  Galatians  ii.  19. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      1 33 

inflicted,  on  the  other.  The  former  is  something 
real  and  spiritual ;  the  latter  is  something  tech- 
nical and  formal.  Can  we  suppose  that  Paul 
taught  that  the  righteous  indignation  of  God 
could  satisfy  itself  by  a  single  flash }  If  so,  it 
would  appear  as  if  the  outcasts  in  hell  should  be 
made  free  after  the  first  shock. 

Hebrews  ix.  13,  14. 

If  we  now  leave  these  two  passages  which  are 
central  in  the  whole  discussion,  and  glance  at 
those  which  are  more  general  in  their  form,  we 
notice  something  which  is  very  strange,  if  the 
traditional  interpretation  of  the  New  Testament 
teaching  is  correct.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  the 
writers  of  the  New  Testament  continually  stop 
short,  or  turn  aside,  just  when  they  might  be  ex- 
pected to  state  this  doctrine.  Instead  of  multi- 
plying quotations,  I  will  take  a  single  passage 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  an  epistle  which 
is  recognized  as  belonging,  on  the  whole,  to  the 
Pauline  school.  The  writer  of  this  epistle  says  : 
"  For  if  the  blood  of  goats  and  bulls,  and  the 
ashes  of  a  heifer  sprinkling  them  that  have  been 
defiled,  sanctify  unto  the  cleanness  of  the  flesh  : 
how  much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who 


134  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

through  the  eternal  Spirit  offered  himself  with- 
out blemish  unto  God,  cleanse  your  conscience 
from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God  f  "  ^ 

The  words  which  I  have  italicized  are  certainly 
not  those  with  which  a  modern  theologian  of  the 
traditional  school  would  have  closed  this  passage. 
Superficially  considered,  they  would  seem  to 
favor  rather  the  interpretation  of  the  Socinians 
than  that  of  the  orthodox  theologian.  Looked 
at  closely,  they  favor  neither. 

I  have  selected  this  passage  because  it  would 
have  afforded  such  a  fine  opportunity  for  the 
writer  to  the  Hebrews  to  introduce  the  idea 
which  the  church  has  in  these  later  centuries 
upheld,  if  only  it  had  been  in  his  mind.  The 
passage  is  a  typical  one.  In  a  word,  the  tradi- 
tional doctrine  has  to  be  read  into  the  more  ab- 
stract statements  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  those  that  are  more 
concrete  and  definite. 

Conchision. 

Many  other  passages  that  illustrate  the  un- 
scriptural  character  of  the  current  view  of  Paul's 
doctrine  of   the  atonement   can   be  better   dis- 

1  Hebrews  ix.  13,  16. 


TRADITIONAL    VIEW  UNSCRIPTURAL.      135 

cussed  in  connection  with  the  consideration  of 
their  real  meaning.  In  bringing  forward  two  or 
three  passages  from  the  New  Testament  to  illus- 
trate the  inadequacy  of  the  traditional  interpre- 
tation, I  have  wished  simply  to  prepare  the  way 
for  a  more  candid  and  interested  examination  of 
the  view  that  I  am  about  to  present  than  might 
otherwise  have  been  possible. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE   GOSPEL  OF   PAUL. 

Sources. 

As,  after  all  this  preparation,  we  approach  the 
positive  treatment  of  our  theme,  we  are  met  by 
the  difficulty  that  we  nowhere  have  a  first-hand 
and  systematic  statement  by  Paul  of  his  doctrine. 
In  every  case  he  is  writing  to  those  who  are 
already  familiar  with  the  principles  upon  which 
his  teaching  was  based.  All  his  utterances  are 
fragmentary.  The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
throws  more  light  upon  his  position  than  any 
other  of  his  writings  ;  but  to  the  Galatians  he 
had  already  expounded  his  doctrine.  They  were 
not  fresh  minds  to  be  taught ;  they  were  back- 
sliders to  be  reclaimed.  From  this  point  of  view 
the  epistle  is  a  marvel  of  effective  expostulation ; 
but  it  is  in  no  sense  a  systematic  treatise.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  see  in  how  many  different  moods  Paul 
approaches  his  old  converts,  in  how  many  differ- 
ent ways  he  strives  to  recall  them  to  their  old 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 37 

faith.  He  wonders  at  their  inconstancy.  ^*  I  mar- 
vel," he  says,  "  that  ye  are  so  quickly  removing 
.  .  .  unto  a  different  gospel,"  ^  which  is  nothing 
that  is  worthy  to  be  called  a  gospel.  H  e  denounces 
the  teachers  of  the  strange  doctrine  :  "  Though 
we,  or  an  angel  from  heaven,  should  preach  unto 
you  any  gospel  other  than  that  which  we  preached 
unto  you,  let  him  be  anathema."  ^  He  denounces 
those  who  accept  such  teaching :  "  Ye  are  sev- 
ered from  Christ,  ye  who  would  be  justified  by 
the  law ;  ye  are  fallen  away  from  grace."  ^  He 
ridicules  them  :  "  O  foolish  Galatians,  who  did 
bewitch  you  .?  "  *  He  praises  them  :  "  Ye  were 
running  well ;  who  did  hinder  you  that  ye  should 
not  obey  the  truth  }  "  ^  He  urges  his  love  for 
them  :  "  My  little  children,  of  whom  I  am  again 
in  travail  until  Christ  be  formed  in  you."  ^  He 
urges  their  old  love  for  him  :  **  For  I  bear  you 
witness,  that,  if  possible,  ye  would  have  plucked 
out  your  eyes  and  given  them  to  me." ''  He  uses 
argument,  indeed,  but  it  is  argument  so  familiar 
to  them  that  they  need  only  to  be  reminded  of 

1  Galatians  i.  6.  2  Galatians  i.  8. 

8  Galatians  v.  4.  ■*  Galatians  iii.  i. 

6  Galatians  v.  7.  ^  Galatians  iv.  19. 

"^  Galatians  iv.  15. 


138  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

it.  He  hurls  his  arguments  at  them  in  the  form 
of  epigrams  :  "  I  through  the  law  died  unto  the 
law  ;  "  ^  "  Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of 
the  law,  having  become  a  curse  for  us."  ^  These 
epigrams  are  less  arguments  than  fragments  of 
arguments.  We  have  to  piece  them  together,  and 
help  them  out  by  what  Paul  or  his  followers  tell 
us  elsewhere.  He  glorifies  his  doctrine  by  show- 
ing its  relation  to  the  whole  history  of  the  past 
of  their  nation.  He  pictures  the  glory  of  the 
liberty  to  which  he  calls  them  :  They  are  no 
longer  bond-servants,  they  are  sons  and  heirs.^ 
In  all  his  zeal  for  his  doctrine,  he  could  not  for- 
get that  which  is  more  precious  than  any  theory ; 
and  before  he  closes  he  summons  them  to  the 
life  of  love  and  holiness  :  "  Be  not  deceived  ;  God 
is  not  mocked  :  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth, 
that  shall  he  also  reap."^  He  cannot  leave  them, 
however,  without  warning  them  against  the 
teachers  who  do  not  themselves  keep  the  law, 
but  wish  to  glory  in  their  flesh.^  These  are  only 
a  few  of  the  forms  of  appeal  by  which  Paul  at- 
tempts to  win  back  his  converts  to  their  former 

1  Galatians  ii.  19.  2  Galatians  iii.  13. 

8  Galatians  iii.  26-29.  *  Galatians  vi.  7. 

^  Galatians  vi.  13. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL.  1 39 

faith  in  the  gospel  that  he  preached.  There  is 
almost  everything  except  a  clear,  straightforward 
statement,  such  as  he  would  make  to  one  who 
might  be  hearing  his  gospel  for  the  first  time. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  which  for  our  pur- 
pose' stands  next  in  importance  to  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians,  exhibits  the  same  lack.  Paul,  in- 
deed, had  never  met  the  disciples  at  Rome  face 
to  face.  They  were,  however,  familiar  with  his 
teachings,  and,  in  spite  of  what  some  critics  have 
urged,  they  sympathized  with  them.  Paul,  in 
writing  to  them,  did  not  need  to  express  himself 
as  he  would  have  done  to  those  to  whom  his 
gospel  was  something  wholly  new.  He  did  not 
need  to  reason  with  them  as  with  backsliders 
from  the  faith.  He  needed  simply  to  exhibit  his 
gospel  in  its  larger  relations. 

Though  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  reaembles 
that  to  the  Galatians  in  the  lack  of  a  systematic 
presentation  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  his 
doctrine,  it  is  like  it  in  little  else.  Indeed,  there 
is  nothing  that  brings  Paul  nearer  to  us,  and 
gives  us  a  stronger  sense  of  his  personality,  than 
the  variation  in  the  style  of  his  epistles,  accord- 
ing to  his  relation  to  the  church  to  which  he 
writes.     With  the  Corinthians,  in  spite  of  their 


140  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

lapses  from  virtue  against  which  he  protests,  he 
seems  to  have  been  most  at  his  ease.  He  ap- 
pears to  have  had  a  special  affection  for  them. 
In  writing  to  them  his  genius  shows  itself  with- 
out any  constraint.  Nowhere  in  his  epistles,  and 
indeed  rarely  in  the  writings  of  the  world,  do  we 
find  such  outbursts  of  lofty  and  fervid  eloquence 
as  he  addressed  to  them.  His  hymn  to  charity 
and  his  glowing  words  in  regard  to  the  life  after 
death  stand  alone  in  literature. 

With  the  Romans  his  relations  were  very  dif- 
ferent. He  was  writing,  as  we  have  said,  to 
strangers.  They  were  sympathetic,  but  they 
were  strangers  none  the  less.  Moreover,  he 
seems  to  have  felt  that  he  was  writing  to  the 
capital  of  the  world.  He  seems  to  have  felt 
something  of  the  awe  which  the  majesty  of  the 
imperial  city  might  naturally  inspire.  This  did 
not  repress  his  genius  ;  it  stimulated  it.  It  does, 
however,  seem  to  have  affected  the  form  of  his 
expression.  The  familiarities  and  the  special 
outbursts  of  the  other  epistles  are  lacking.  In 
the  place  of  these  there  is  a  dignity  which  none 
of  the  other  epistles  possesses.  The  letter  to 
the  Romans  has  the  loftiness,  the  sweep,  and 
the  unity  of  an  oration.     It  shows  Paul  to  have 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL,  I41 

been  not  merely  a  man  of  fervid  eloquence,  but 
equally  a  master  of  form.  Thus,  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  stands  as  the  completed  monu- 
ment of  Paul's  genius.  It  presents  his  doctrine 
in  the  aspect  of  a  philosophy  of  history.  It  was, 
however,  as  has  been  said,  addressed  to  those  to 
whom  it  was  no  new  thing  ;  and  therefore  it  does 
not  give  in  simple  and  detailed  form  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  whole  is  based. 

The  Epistles  to  the  Galatians  and  to  the  Ro- 
mans are  the  only  ones  which  are  specially  de- 
voted to  the  presentation  of  Paul's  gospel  ;  but 
in  some  of  the  others  we  find  here  and  there 
statements  and  expressions  which  throw  much 
light  upon  his  system,  not  the  less  helpful  be- 
cause they  are  incidental  in  discourses  which 
bear  mostly  upon  other  themes. 

In  considering  the  material  from  which  we 
have  to  seek  the  doctrine  of  Paul  in  regard  to 
the  atonement,  we  do  not  need  to  trouble  our- 
selves with  questions  of  criticism,  and  to  consider 
the  objections  that  have  been  raised  against  the 
authenticity  of  this  epistle  and  that.  The  doc- 
trine of  Paul  was  substantially  the  doctrine  of  a 
school.  It  was  an  important  movement  which 
Paul  inaugurated.     The  principles  which  he  defi- 


142  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

nitely  taught  formed  the  basis  of  the  Christian 
life  of  the  larger  church  of  which  he  was  the 
founder.  We  should  expect  that  they  would  be 
substantially  the  same,  whether  taught  by  his 
followers  or  himself. 

Of  course,  if  in  a  doubtful  epistle  there  were 
any  indication  of  a  different  view  from  that  which 
is  presented  in  those  of  which  the  genuineness 
is  undoubted,  the  case  would  be  different  ;  but 
so  long  as  the  expressions  used  in  a  doubtful 
epistle  are  such  as  adapt  themselves  perfectly 
to  the  interpretation  of  Paul's  teaching  that  I 
am  urging,  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should 
not  be  used  to  illustrate  and  to  defend  this  in- 
terpretation. The  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and 
that  to  the  Colossians  are  the  only  ones  among 
the  disputed  epistles  of  which  I  shall  make  such 
use,^  In  what  I  have  said,  I  have  not  meant 
to  express  an  opinion  in  a  matter  in  regard  to 
which  my  opinion  would  be  worth  little.  I 
merely  wish  to  justify  the  use  that  I  make  of 
these  epistles,  whatever  view  may  be  taken  of 
them. 

1  Of  these  epistles,  Dr.  Toy  says  that,  whoever  their  author  or 
authors  may  be,  their  theology  is  substantially  Pauline.  Judaism 
and  Christianity,  p.  215. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 43 

What  I  have  said  of  these  epistles  may  be 
applied  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Nobody 
now  supposes  that  this  epistle  was  written  by 
Paul.  Nobody  doubts,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  it 
was  written  by  a  follower  of  Paul.  There  may 
be  found  in  it  differences  from  the  Pauline  teach- 
ing. I  shall  suggest  one  such  possible  differ- 
ence. The  movement  represented  by  Paul  and 
the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  was,  however,  an  ex- 
tremely definite  one,  and  all  its  representatives 
may  be  assumed  to  have  been  inspired  by  the 
same  thought  in  regard  to  the  fundamental  rela- 
tion of  Christianity  to  Judaism.  I  shall,  there- 
fore, not  hesitate  to  refer  to  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  and  to  take  what  help  it  may  furnish 
in  the  attempt  to  reach  a  comprehension  of  Paul's 
teaching.  Certainly,  nothing  not  from  the  hand 
of  Paul  himself  can  be  used  so  confidently  for 
this  purpose  as  the  writings  of  his  followers.  In 
other  words,  if  we  had  undertaken  to  discuss  the 
doctrine  of  atonement  as  held  by  the  non-Judaiz- 
ing  wing  of  the  apostolic  church,  all  the  material 
just  referred  to  would  naturally  be  used.  As  Paul 
was  the  great  leader  in  the  anti-Jewish  movement, 
it  matters  little  whether  it  is  spoken  of  as  his 
movement  or  by  a  more  general  name. 


144  ^^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Our  material,  then,  consists  in  scattered  utter- 
ances by  Paul,  and  by  one  or  more  representatives 
of  his  school,  according  as  we  reckon  the  Epis- 
tles to  the  Ephesians  and  the  Colossians  as  by 
Paul  or  his  followers.  These  scattered  utterances 
we  have  to  fit  together  as  perfectly  as  we  may. 
If  we  can  unite  them,  as  we  will  hope,  so  that 
they  will  make  a  perfect  whole,  we  shall  have  the 
most  satisfactory  result.  If  anything  is  to  be 
added,  this  should  not  be  done  till  the  original 
pieces  have  been  arranged  as  far  as  they  will  go. 
We  are  like  a  boy  with  the  bits  of  a  dissected  map 
before  him,  not  quite  sure  whether  anything  is 
missing  or  not.  His  way  is  to  fit  together  the 
pieces  that  he  has,  and  if  anything  more  is  finally 
needed,  to  cut  out  a  piece  precisely  the  shape  of 
the  empty  space. 

The  Abolition  of  the  Law, 

If  we  turn  now  to  the  business  in  hand,  we 
have  to  start  with  the  passages  from  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians  which  were  discussed  in  the  last 
chapter.  The  key  to  the  whole  matter  is  found 
in  the  thirteenth  verse  of  the  third  chapter : 
*'  Christ  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law, 
having  become  a  curse  for  us  :  for  it  is  written, 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 45 

Cursed  is  every  one  that  hangeth  on  a  tree." 
The  nature  of  this  curse  was  considered  in  the 
last  chapter.  We  there  saw  that,  in  the  Hebrew 
law  as  well  as  in  the  religious  rites  of  all  older 
peoples,  elements  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
distinguishing  from  one  another  are  united.  With 
these  are  mingled  elements  of  which  we  have 
no  conception.  In  that  chapter  we  made  an  ex- 
tremely loose  but  sufficiently  practical  division 
between  purity  and  impurity  which  have  an  ethi- 
cal significance  and  those  that  are  purely  cere- 
monial.^ In  this  the  earlier  codes  may  be  com- 
pared to  the  rays  of  pure  unrefracted  light.  These 
rays  we  divide  for  our  own  purposes  into  the 
color-bringing  rays,  the  heat-bringing  rays,  and 
the  chemical  rays.  The  division  is  artificial, 
though  the  distinction  is  real.  So  in  studying 
the  rules  of  life  of  any  ancient  people,  it  is 
necessary  to  separate  elements  that  were  united 
in  their  thought. 

In  the  case  before  us,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
the  curse  under  which  the  crucified  suffered  was 
of  the  nature  of  ceremonial  impurity.  He  that 
bore  it  was  not  crucified  because  he  was  ac- 
cursed ;  he  was  accursed  because  he  was  cruci- 
1  See  p.  112  f. 


146  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

fied.  Of  course,  he  who  thus  bore  the  curse  of 
the  law,  being  already  dead,  could  not  himself 
suffer  from  it,  except  so  far  as  the  body  might 
be  exposed  to  some  indignity.  The  significance 
of  the  impurity,  which  was  the  substance  of  the 
curse,  consisted  in  the  fact  that  the  thing  thus 
impure  became  a  source  of  pollution.  If  the  land, 
as  is  intimated  in  the  original  passage  in  the 
book  of  Deuteronomy,^  should  become  polluted 
through  the  fact  that  those  who  were  hung  upon 
a  tree  remained  thus  exposed  during  the  night, 
the  result  would  be,  apparently,  that  the  dwell- 
ers in  the  land  would  suffer  some  calamity  there- 
from. Some  similar  trouble  was  apparently  feared 
if  Jesus  and  his  fellow-sufferers  remained  thus 
hanging  over  the  Sabbath,  which  was  one  of  spe- 
cial sanctity.  Thus  we  read,  '*  The  Jews  there- 
fore, because  it  was  the  Preparation,  that  the 
bodies  should  not  remain  on  the  cross  upon  the 
sabbath  (for  the  day  of  that  sabbath  was  a  high 
day),  asked  of  Pilate  that  their  legs  might  be 
broken,  and  that  they  might  be  taken  away."  ^ 

Such  was  the  curse  under  which  Paul  consid- 
ered the  crucified  Jesus  to  rest. 

The  nineteenth  and  twentieth  verses  of  the 

^  Deuteronomy  xxi.  23.  2  John  xix.  31. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 47 

second  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
are,  obviously,  to  be  taken  in  close  connection 
with  that  just  considered  :  "  For  I  through  the 
law  died  unto  the  law,  that  I  might  live  unto 
God.  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ."  ^  The 
sense  in  which  Paul  affirmed  that  he  had  been 
crucified  with  Christ  is,  after  what  has  been 
said,  unmistakable.  The  point  which  Paul  em- 
phasizes in  regard  to  the  crucifixion  is  the  legal 
and  ceremonial  impurity  which  it  involved.  When 
Paul  says,  "  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ," 
he  can,  therefore,  mean  nothing  else  than  that 
he  shares  with  him  the  legal  and  ceremonial  im- 
purity that  was  involved  in  his  crucifixion.  In 
other  words,  Paul,  owing  to  his  connection  with 
the  crucified,  was,  like  him,  legally  impure,  and 
was  thus  an  outcast  from  the  Jewish  church. 

The  necessity  of  this  result  from  Paul's  point 
of  view  is  obvious.  As  we  have  seen,  the  nature 
of  the  impurity  which  marked  the  body  of  the 
crucified  was  that  it  became  itself  a  source  of 
pollution.  The  Christian  stood  in  the  closest 
possible  relation  with  his  crucified  Lord.  His 
whole  spiritual  life  was  derived  from  him.  He 
made  of  the  crucified  his  Messiah.     Thus,  from 

1  Galatians  ii.  19,  20. 


148  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL, 

the  Jewish  point  of  view,  he  brought  the  accursed 
thing  into  the  very  sanctuary,  and  gave  it  there 
the  central  and  supreme  place.  No  violation  of 
the  legal  and  ceremonial  order  could  be  greater, 
and  to  the  Jew  more  shocking,  than  this.  The 
Christian  and  his  Lord  were  thus  together  im- 
pure and  outcasts  from  the  sacred  commonwealth 
of  the  Jews. 

The  bearing  of  all  this  upon  the  relation  of 
the  Christianized  Jew  to  the  law  is  sufficiently 
obvious.  Instead,  however,  of  letting  our  own 
thought  press  forward  to  the  result  which  is  al- 
ready in  sight,  we  will  let  the  relation  be  stated 
by  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews,  who  belonged  to 
the  school  of  Paul,  and  who,  as  I  have  already 
urged,  may  be  trusted  in  so  fundamental  a  mat- 
ter to  represent  Paul.  This  writer  says  :  "  We 
have  an  altaVy  whereof  they  have  no  right  to  eat 
which  serve  the  tabernacle.  For  the  bodies  of 
those  beasts,  whose  blood  is  brought  into  the 
holy  place  by  the  high  priest  as  an  offering  for 
sin,  are  burned  without  the  camp.  Wherefore 
Jesus  also,  that  he  might  sanctify  the  people 
through  his  own  blood,  suffered  without  the 
gate.  Let  us,  therefore,  go  forth  unto  him  with- 
out the  camp,  bearing  his  reproach."  ^ 

1  Hebrews  xiii.  10-13. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 49 

This  extremely  interesting  passage  suggests 
certain  aspects  of  the  case  which  can  be  bet- 
ter considered  later.  Of  one  thing  there  can, 
however,  be  no  doubt.  When  the  writer  to  the 
Hebrews  says,  figuratively,  that  Jesus  "  suf- 
fered without  the  gate,"  he  can  mean  nothing 
different  from  what  Paul  meant  when  he  said, 
literally,  that  because  Jesus  was  crucified  he  be- 
came a  curse.  When  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews 
speaks  of  going  to  Jesus  without  the  camp  and 
bearing  his  reproach,  he  can  mean  nothing  else 
than  what  Paul  means  when  he  speaks  of  being 
crucified  with  Christ.  I  say  without  hesitation 
that  he  can  mean  nothing  else ;  because,  if  he 
did,  we  should  have  no  school,  but  simply  individ- 
ual writers  wholly  independent  of  one  another. 
We  should  have  a  movement  apparently  uni- 
form and  harmonious,  but  which  was  really  the 
accidental  result  of  persons  who  reached  the 
same  conclusion  from  wholly  different  premises. 
There  could  be  but  one  element  in  the  death  of 
Christ  by  which  he  could  be  regarded  as  suffer- 
ing without  the  gate,  and  as  a  consequence  of 
which  his  followers  could  be  urged  to  go  to  him 
without  the  camp,  bearing  his  reproach ;  and 
this  element  was  the  fact  that  the  law  had  pro- 


I50  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

nounced  the  crucified  to  be  accursed.  There 
could  be  but  one  reason  why  those  who  served 
the  tabernacle  could  not  be  allowed  to  eat  of 
the  Christian  altar,  and  that  was  the  fact  that 
the  crucified  was  polluted  and  a  pollution. 

In  the  first  sentence  of  the  passage  quoted, 
the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  utters  in  unmistak- 
able language  the  relation  of  the  Christian  to 
the  law.  If  those  who  served  the  Tabernacle  had 
no  right  to  take  part  in  the  Christian  ritnal,  it  was 
equally  true  that  the  Christian  had  no  right  to  take 
part  in  the  yewish  ritual  The  Christian  and  his 
master  were  together  outcast.  The  law  had  ut- 
tered its  final  curse  upon  him  and  them.  With 
the  law,  therefore,  the  Christian  had  simply 
nothing  further  to  do  ;  neither  had  the  law  any- 
thing further  to  do  with  him.  So  far  as  the  law 
was  concerned,  the  Christian  was,  for  good  or 
for  evil,  free.  He  was  like  one  who  has  been 
excommunicated  from  the  Catholic  church,  who 
therefore  stands  outside  of  it.  Neither  its  fasts 
nor  its  feasts,  neither  its  mass  nor  its  confes- 
sional, has  any  further  relation  to  him.  If  he 
observes  the  ceremonial,  he  is  none  the  better. 
If  he  neglects  it,  he  is  none  the  worse.  Indeed, 
he  cannot  observe  it.     He  is  forced  to  neglect 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  151 

it.  If  he  should  attend  the  mass  or  the  con- 
fessional, he  would  be  driven  forth  with  indig- 
nation. The  church  has  cast  him  out.  Through 
this  act  of  the  church  he  has  become  dead  to 
the  church.  Thus  Paul  could  cry :  "  I  through 
the  law  died  unto  the  law."  ^  Paul  was  dead  to 
the  law,  because  the  law  had  pronounced  Jesus 
accursed,  and  Paul,  accepting  him  as  the  Messiah, 
shared  this  curse  with  him.  Thus  by  the  act  of 
the  law  he  had  become  an  outcast  and  an  alien. 

It  will  be  noticed  that,  in  the  passage  quoted, 
the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  goes  a  little  farther 
than  Paul  seems  sometimes  inclined  to  go.  Ac- 
cording to  his  view,  it  would  appear  that  the 
Christian  had  absolutely  no  right  to  take  part  in 
the  Temple  service.  Paul  would  seem  sometimes 
to  make  it  simply  a  matter  of  indifference.  Cer- 
tainly if  the  account  in  Acts  is  to  be  accepted  as 
true,  Paul  himself  went  with  those  that  were 
with  him  to  the  Temple  for  the  fulfilment  of 
some  ceremonial.2  If  he  did  this  to  conciliate  the 
Jews,  as  so  often  happens  in  such  attempts  at 
conciliation,  the  result  was  quite  other  than  that 
which  he  had  planned.  If  this  story  be  regarded 
as  doubtful,  we  yet  find  Paul  exclaiming  :  "  To 

1  Galatians  ii.  19.  ^  Acts  xxi.  26. 


152  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

the  Jews  I  became  as  a  Jew,  that  I  might  gain 
Jews."  ^  On  the  other  hand,  he  exclaims :  "  If 
ye  receive  circumcision,  Christ  will  profit  you 
nothing."  ^  jf  there  is  any  difference  between 
Paul  and  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  in  regard  to 
this  matter,  it  is  merely  superficial.  It  does  not 
affect  the  fundamental  principle  which  both  ac- 
cept. It  would  be  simply  what  so  often  happens, 
that  the  disciple  carries  out  a  principle  more 
thoroughly  than  his  teacher. 

Having  reached  this  result,  let  us  look  back 
and  see  how  inevitable  it  was  that  Paul  should 
have  reached  it.  I  have  in  general  not  much 
confidence  in  a  priori  construction  of  history. 
In  this  case,  however,  Paul  has  left  footmarks 
by  which  we  can  learn  the  way  that  he  has  trav- 
elled. 

Paul  appears  first  as  a  rigid  Jew  and  a  perse- 
cutor of  the  Christians.  Why  did  he  persecute 
them  }  If  we  can  answer  this  question,  the  rest 
of  his  course  will  become  clear.  Paul  was  a  hu- 
mane man.  He  was  even  tender-hearted.  He 
was  a  fair-minded  and  just  man.  We  may  be 
sure  that  he  would  not  persecute  the  Christians 
simply  because  he  did  not  like  them.     He  would 

1  I  Corinthians  ix.  20.  2  Galatians  v.  2. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 53 

not  suffer  himself  to  be  led  into  cruelty  by  a 
more  or  less  conscious  prejudice.  He  perse- 
cuted them  because  he  felt  that  it  was  his  duty 
to  persecute  them. 

Now  it  will  not  help  us  to  try  to  guess  why  he 
felt  that  it  was  his  duty.  Eighteen  centuries  of 
guessing  have  done  very  little  to  clear  up  the 
whole  transaction.  Happily  Paul  gives  us  indi- 
cations enough  if  we  will  only  follow  them. 

The  question  is,  why  Paul  felt  obliged  to 
persecute  the  Christians.  He  tells  us  very  dis- 
tinctly what  was  the  objection  that  the  Jew  urged 
against  the  Christians.  He  tells  us  that  to  the 
Jew  the  cross  was  a  "stumbling-block,"^  a  "scan- 
dal." The  Jew  then  objected  to  the  Christians, 
not  primarily  that  they  accepted  as  the  Messiah 
one  whom  the  Jews  generally  did  not  accept,  but 
that  they  took  for  the  Messiah  one  who  had 
been  crucified.  If  we  ask  still  further  why  they  ' 
objected  to  this  adoption  as  their  leader  of  one 
who  had  been  crucified,  Paul  tells  us  distinctly 
that  in  the  eye  of  the  law  the  crucified  was  ac- 
cursed.2  From  a  passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  it  would  seem  that  this  was  the 
general  way  in  which  Christ  was   regarded  by 

1  I  Corinthians  i.  23.  2  Galatians  iii.  13. 


154  ^-^^    GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

the  Jews.  *' Wherefore,"  Paul  writes,  "I  give 
you  to  understand,  that  no  man  speaking  in  the 
Spirit  of  God  saith,  Jesus  is  anathema;  and  no 
man  can  say,  Jesus  is  Lord,  but  in  the  Holy 
Spirit."  1  This  passage  would  indicate  that  these 
expressions  formed  the  rallying  cries  of  the  two 
parties,  —  the  one  party  crying  that  Jesus  is 
anathema,  the  other  that  he  is  Lord.  Now,  since 
Paul  has  told  us  why  Jesus  was  said  to  be  anath- 
ema, we  have  no  occasion  to  look  for  any  other 
reason.  Paul  indeed  himself,  after  he  had  be- 
come a  Christian,  still  pronounced  Jesus  to  be 
legally  accursed ;  but  he  did  not  stop  with  this. 
He  called  him,  in  spite  of  this,  or  on  account  of 
this,  "  Lord." 

To  Paul  the  persecutor,  then,  Judaism  had  no 
place  for  the  Christian,  because  the  leader  of  the 
Christians  was  anathema.  If  we  ask  further, 
why  the  fact  that  their  leader  was  anathema 
should  lead  him  to  persecute  the  Christians,  he 
gives  us  later,  in  the  first  person,  the  reason.  It 
was  because  they  were  crucified  with  Christ  ;2 
that  is,  the  pollution  that  came  from  the  cross 
rested  also  upon  them.  Therefore  they  were  to 
be  treated  as  polluters  of  the  Jewish  holy  things. 

1  I  Corinthians  xii.  3.  2  Galatians  ii.  20. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL,  1 55 

Thus  far  we  have  followed  the  indications 
given  by  Paul  himself.  Judaism  had  no  place 
for  Christians,  for  they  were  polluted  by  the 
cross  of  their  leader.  Suddenly  Paul  saw,  or  be- 
lieved that  he  saw,  the  crucified  one  in  all  the 
glory  of  God.  The  Christian,  then,  was  right. 
Paul  recognized  the  accursed  one  as  Lord.  In 
the  story  in  the  Acts,  he  cried,  "  Who  art  thou, 
Lord  }  "  1 

What  effect  would  this  sudden  transformation 
have  upon  the  reasoning  that  we  have  been  con- 
sidering }  It  could  have  no  effect.  Paul  had 
not  persecuted  from  prejudice  or  caprice.  He 
had  done  it  because  he  believed  that  this  was 
what  the  law  required.  He  persecuted  the 
Christians  because,  as  he  understood  the  law, 
Judaism  had  no  place  for  them.  His  mind  was 
too  logical  to  change  the  results  and  methods 
of  his  thought,  because  his  interest  lay  now  in 
another  direction.  Judaism  had  no  place  for  the 
Christian.  Now  that  he  was  a  Christian,  Juda- 
ism had  no  place  for  him.  The  Christian  shared 
the  pollution  of  the  cross.  Now  he  could  cry : 
"  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ."  ^  Now  he 
felt  obliged  to  follow  his  new  Lord  without  the 

1  Acts  ix.  5.  2  Galatians  il.  20. 


156  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

camp,  bearing  his  reproach/  just  as  he  had  been 
forcing  the  Christians  to  follow  him  without  the 
camp,  bearing  his  reproach.  He  cast  in  his  lot 
with  them  with  as  little  hesitation  as  he  had 
forced  that  lot  upon  them.  Everything  was  the 
same  now  that  he  was  a  Christian  that  it  was 
before.  Everything  was  the  same,  and  yet  how 
different !  There  was  a  whole  other  side  of 
which  he  had  not  dreamed.  Before,  he  had 
urged  that  the  Christian  was  crucified  with 
Christ.  Now  he  repeated  for  himself  the  same 
condemnation,  but  he  added  to  it  a  sentence 
which  changed  its  whole  significance :  "  I  have 
been  crucified  with  Christ,  nevertheless  I  live; 
yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  ^ 

The  same  logic  that  made  Paul  a  persecutor 
while  he  was  a  Jew  made  him  preach  the  abro- 
gation of  the  law  after  he  became  a  Christian  ; 
only  what  from  the  outside  looked  like  shame, 
seen  from  the  inside  was  glory.  What  from  the 
outside  seemed  banishment,  seen  from  the  in- 
side was  a  home-coming  to  the  freedom  of  the 
child. 

The  familiar  lines  which  were  so  often  on  the 
lips  of  the  schoolboy  in  my  earlier  years,  in  which 

1  Hebrews  xiii.  13.  ^  2  Galatians  ii.  20  f. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 57 

Catiline  described  the  effect  of  his  banishment, 
contains  the  logic  of  the  whole  situation.  The 
departing  Catiline  exclaimed  :  — 

'*  Banished !  I  thank  you  for  't ;  it  breaks  my  chain. 
I  held  some  slack  allegiance  till  this  hour, 
But  now  my  sword  's  my  own." 

Thus  Catiline  might  have  said :  "  I  through 
the  law  am  dead  to  the  law.  Rome  in  banish- 
ing me  sets  me  free.  I  am  no  longer  a  Roman, 
and  am  no  longer  subject  to  the  laws  of  Rome." 
Paul  had  held  no  **  slack  allegiance."  No  more 
devoted  servant  of  Judaism  ever  lived  than  he : 
but  now  he  followed  the  guiding  hand  of  God 
himself.  He  accepted  as  the  Messiah  one  to 
whom  God  had  given  his  glory.  For  so  doing, 
the  law  pronounced  him  anathema.  He  accepted 
the  judgment ;  but  to  his  surprise  he  found  that 
as  an  exile  from  Judaism  he  entered  the  land  of 
blessedness  and  liberty,  of  the  possibility  of 
which  he  had  never  dreamed. 

The  first  result  of  the  crucifixion  to  the  thought 
of  Paul  was,  that  by  it  for  the  Christian  the  law 
was  abrogated.  This  was  an  event  that  could 
not  have  been  foreseen.  In  it  what  would  have 
seemed  the  impossible  became  the  actual.  Paul 
regarded  the  law  as  divinely  appointed.     In  the 


158  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

great  change  of  his  faith,  he  did  not  lose  this 
confidence  in  the  divine  origin  of  the  law.  It  was 
one  of  the  striking  facts  in  Paul's  spiritual  devel- 
opment that  he  never  went  backward.  As  we  have 
seen  before,  his  beliefs  were  carefully  wrought 
out  and  their  foundations  were  well  established. 
He  simply  pressed  forward  and  let  his  original 
beliefs  develop  into  whatever  results  they  would. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  relation  of  the  Christian  to 
the  law  was  to  him  precisely  the  same  after  his 
conversion  that  it  was  before  ;  only  this  relation 
involved  consequences  which  before  he  had  not 
suspected.  In  like  manner  his  fundamental 
thought  of  the  law  was  not  changed.  He  sim- 
ply found  in  the  law  itself  utterances  which  im- 
plied that  from  the  beginning  it  was  meant  to 
be  transitory.  He  passed  out  from  under  the 
law  as  reverently  as  he  had  lived  under  it.  It 
was  through  the  law  itself  that  he  died  to  the 
law.  No  other  power  than  that  of  the  law  itself 
would  have  released  him  from  its  authority. 

The  Remission  of  Sins. 

The  next  result  of  the  crucifixion,  one  that 
was  involved  in  the  one  just  stated,  was  the  re- 
mission of   the  sins  that  had   been  committed 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 59 

against  the  law,  and  the  removal  of  .  the  con- 
demnation that  these  sins  had  incurred.  As  in 
the  time  of  the  French  Revolution,  when  the 
tyranny  under  which  France  had  terribly  suf- 
fered was  overthrown,  the  prisoners  that  were 
languishing  under  its  condemnation  for  crimes 
committed  against  it  came  forth  into  the  light 
of  liberty,  so  when  the  Jewish  law  was  abrogated, 
old  scores  were  wiped  out,  and  old  offences  lost 
their  condemnation.  The  penalties  of  the  law 
were  no  longer  dreaded,  for  the  law  that  had 
imposed  them  had  ceased  to  be. 

All  this,  it  will  be  noticed,  is  quite  opposite 
from  the  ordinary  view  of  Paul's  teaching.  It 
has  been  held  that  Christ  by  his  death  bore  the 
penalty  of  human  transgressions ;  that  the  sins 
of  those  who  trusted  in  him  were  thus  remitted  ; 
and  that  on  account  of  this,  in  some  way  which 
it  was  impossible  to  make  very  clear,  the  law 
was  abrogated.  Between  these  two  transactions 
—  the  remission  of  sins  and  the  abrogation  of 
the  law  —  there  was  no  logical  connection.  Ac- 
cording to  the  view  here  presented,  the  process 
was  the  reverse  of  this.  The  law  was  first  abro- 
gated, and  through  this  abrogation  of  the  law  the 
sins  which  had  been  committed  under  it  were 


l6o  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL, 

remitted.    The  connection  between  the  two  trans- 
actions is  a  logical  and  inevitable  one. 

However  clear  and  obvious  this  relation  is,  the 
other  view  has  become  so  established  by  long 
association  that  I  should  almost  despair  of  find- 
ing acceptance  for  the  one  which  I  present,  if  it 
were  not  that  in  the  New  Testament  itself  I  find 
this  directly  stated.  As  we  have  already  seen, 
the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  may  be  taken  as 
illustrating  in  this  fundamental  matter  the 
thought  of  Paul ;  for  if  it  was  not  written  by 
him,  it  none  the  less  represents  the  school  of 
thought  which  he  established.  In  this  epistle 
we  read  :  "  And  you,  being  dead  through  your 
trespasses  and  the  uncircumcision  of  your  flesh, 
you,  I  say,  did  he  quicken  together  with  him,  hav- 
ing forgiven  us  all  our  trespasses  ;  having  blotted 
out  the  bond  written  in  ordinances  that  was  against 
uSf  which  was  contrary  to  us :  and  he  hath  taken 
it  out  of  the  way  J  nailing  it  to  the  cross''  ^  In 
this  passage  we  are  distinctly  told  that  our  tres- 
passes were  forgiven,  because  the  bond  written 
in  ordinances,  or  in  the  alternate  translation 
which  the  Revised  Version  suggests,  "the  bond 
that  was  against  us  by  its  ordinances,"  was  taken 

1  Colossians  ii.  13,  14. 

) 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  l6l 

out  of  the  way.  This  is  obviously  and  unmis- 
takably the  Jewish  law.  It  was  the  law  which 
was  nailed  to  the  cross.  In  other  words,  the 
law  and  the  Christ  came  into  collision.  The  law 
condemned  him  and  won  thus  a  temporary  vic- 
tory ;  but  in  condemning  him  it  condemned  it- 
self. By  this  last  act  of  authority  it  abdicated 
its  authority.  Thus  it  was  nailed  to  the  cross 
by  a  permanent  crucifixion.  Jesus  rose  glori- 
fied ;  the  law  died  eternally.  The  passage  be- 
fore us  insists  that  the  forgiveness  of  our  tres- 
passes was  the  result  of  the  crucifixion  of  the 
law  ;  that  is,  of  its  abrogation  through  the  cru- 
cifixion of  Christ,  which  is  directly  opposed  to 
the  commonly  received  view.  This  view,  I  re- 
peat, makes  the  forgiveness  of  sins  primary  and 
the  abolition  of  the  law  secondary  ;  while  the 
writer  to  the  Colossians  makes  the  abolition  of 
the  law  primary  and  the  forgiveness  of  sins  sec- 
ondary. In  this  the  writer  to  the  Colossians 
illustrates  and  confirms  the  result  which  we  have 
already  reached  from  the  study  of  the  Pauline 
epistles. 

In  this  connection  it  is  important  to  notice 
that  the  passage  which  begins  with  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins,  basing  this  upon  the  abrogation  of 


1 62  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

the  law,  passes  at  once  to  the  exhortation  to  the 
maintenance  of  Christian  liberty :  *'  Let  no  man 
therefore  judge  you  in  meat,  or  in  drink,  or  in  re- 
spect of  a  feast  day  or  a  new  moon  or  a  sabbath 
day."  ^  All  this  from  the  point  of  view  which 
has  been  generally  held  seems  to  have  little  to  do 
with  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  From  that  point  of 
view  the  author  seems  to  write  inconsequently. 
From  the  point  of  view  here  insisted  upon,  the 
passage  assumes  a  logical  consistency.  Indeed, 
it  is  not  infrequently  the  case  that  this  interpre- 
tation brings  order  and  sequence  into  the  Paul- 
ine writing  in  cases  where  they  had  seemed 
most  lacking. 

The  view  of  Paul's  teaching  which  sees  the 
remission  of  sins  to  have  been  the  result  of  the 
abolition  of  the  law  receives  another  striking 
confirmation  from  a  passage  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  which  speaks  of  the  death  of  Christ 
as  the  basis  of  the  remission  of  sins  that  had 
been  committed  under  the  law.  The  passage 
is  as  follows :  "  And  for  this  cause  he  is  the 
mediator  of  a  new  covenant,  that  a  death  having 
taken  place  for  the  redemptioit  of  the  transgres- 
sions  that  were  under  the  first  covenant^  they  that 
1  Colossians  ii.  i6. 


) 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 63 

have  been  called  may  receive  the  promise  of  the 
eternal  inheritance."  ^  Here  we  are  made  to 
understand  that  the  redemption  wrought  by  the 
death  of  Christ  was  that  of  transgressions  under 
the  first  covenant.  "  The  first  covenant  "  was 
obviously  the  Mosaic  law.  It  was  not  sin  in 
general  that  was  redeemed,  but  transgressions  of 
the  law  of  Moses.  All  this  requires  much  for- 
cing to  adapt  it  to  the  ordinary  view  of  the  sacri- 
ficial death  of  Christ.  It  adapts  itself,  however, 
simply  and  naturally  to  what  we  have  seen  to 
be  the  Pauline  view. 

This  view  is  further  illustrated  by  the  solemn 
warning  given  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
that  no  further  sacrifice  for  sin  is  possible.  The 
passage  is  this  :  "  For  if  we  sin  wilfully  after 
that  we  have  received  the  knowledge  of  the  truth, 
there  remaineth  no  more  a  sacrifice  for  sins."  ^ 
This  statement,  unlike  the  others  that  I  have 
quoted,  would  admit  of  an  interpretation  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  commonly  received  view  of 
the  Pauline  theology  ;  and  we  must  certainly  not 
regard  it  as  an  application  of  his  teaching  made 
by  Paul  himself.  It  conforms,  however,  most 
naturally  to  the  view  of  Paul's  doctrine  which  I 

1  Hebrews  ix.  1 5.  2  Hebrews  x.  26. 


164  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

am  presenting,  and  is  a  naturally  suggested  de- 
duction from  it.  If  the  death  of  Christ  was  for 
the  remission  of  sins  committed  under  the  law, 
it  would  have  no  relation  to  sins  committed  by 
those  who  have  been  emancipated  from  the  law. 
For  those  who  under  these  circumstances  sinned 
wilfully,  there  remained  no  more  offering  for  sin. 
Should  the  explanation  of  Paul's  view  of  the 
remission  of  sins  by  the  death  of  Christ,  namely, 
that  sins  were  remitted  because  the  law  was  done 
away,  seem  to  any  indirect  and  cold,  I  will  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  it  is  suggested  in  the 
most  impassioned  utterance  of  Paul  that  has 
come  down  to  us.  I  mean  the  passage  in  which 
he  cries  :  "  O  death,  where  is  thy  victory  }  O 
death,  where  is  thy  sting  }  The  sting  of  death 
is  sin  ;  and  the  power  of  sin  is  the  law  :  but 
thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the  victory 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."^  In  this  pas- 
sage, the  idea  that  the  power  of  sin  is  lost  be- 
cause the  law  is  done  away  fits  perfectly  with  the 
passion  of  the  outburst ;  while  the  explanation 
commonly  given,  that  the  law  loses  its  power 
because  in  the  substitutionary  death  of  Christ  its 
demands  were  met,  is  awkward  and  far-fetched. 

1  I  Corinthians  xv.  55-57. 


^ 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 65 

Salvation  for  the  Gentiles. 

The  question  now  presses  :  What  part  had 
the  Gentiles  in  all  this  ?  What  effect  did  the 
abolition  of  the  law  have  upon  them  ?  How 
could  the  death  of  Christ  be  in  any  sense  re- 
garded as  the  propitiation  for  their  sins  when, 
being  wholly  outside  the  law,  they  had  not  sinned 
against  it  ?  Now  and  then,  however,  we  find 
it  so  spoken  of.  Thus  in  the  Epistle  of  John 
we  read :  "  He  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  ; 
and  not  for  ours  only,  but  also  for  the  whole 
world."  1 

Though  the  Gentile  was  not  under  the  law,  he 
was  under  the  shadow  of  it.  The  Gentile  was, 
as  Paul  insists,  also  a  sinner.^  To  the  Jew  the 
law  was  the  vehicle  of  a  promise.  The  Gentile 
had  no  part  in  this  promise.  For  him  there  was 
no  hope.  When  the  law  was  annulled,  however, 
the  promise  which  had  been  wrapped  up  in  it 
remained  in  its  fulness,  and  for  the  first  time 
appeared  in  its  beauty.  By  the  annulling  of  the 
law  the  limitation  which  had  excluded  the  Gen- 
tile from  the  hope  of  Israel  was  done  away.  The 
Jew  had  become  as  the  Gentile  and  the  Gentile 
had  thereby  become  as  the  Jew. 

1  I  John  ii.  2.  2  Romans  i.  18-32,  et  passim. 


1 66  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

It  is  fortunate  that  in  regard  to  each  of  the 
most  important  aspects  of  the  atoning  death  of 
Christ  we  find  in  the  New  Testament  at  least 
one  luminous  passage  which  makes  clear  the 
whole  matter.  The  classical  passage  in  regard 
to  the  relation  of  the  death  of  Christ  to  the 
Gentile  world  is  found  in  the  second  chapter  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians.  There  we  read : 
*' Wherefore  remember,  that  aforetime  ye,  the 
Gentiles  in  the  flesh,  who  are  called  Uncircum- 
cision  by  that  which  is  called  Circumcision,  in 
the  flesh,  made  by  hands  ;  that  ye  were  at  that 
time  separate  from  Christ,  alienated  from  the 
commonwealth  of  Israel,  and  strangers  from  the 
covenants  of  the  promise,  having  no  hope  and 
without  God  in  the  world.  But  now  in  Christ 
Jesus  ye  that  once  were  far  off  are  made  nigh  in 
the  blood  of  Christ.  For  he  is  our  peace,  who 
made  both  one,  and  brake  down  the  middle  wall 
of  partition,  having  abolished  in  his  flesh  the 
enmity,  even  the  law  of  commandments  con- 
tained in  ordinances ;  that  he  might  create  in 
himself  of  the  twain  one  new  man,  so  making 
peace ;  and  might  reconcile  them  both  in  one 
body  unto  God  through  the  cross,  having  slain 
the  enmity  thereby :  and  he  came  and  preached 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 67 

peace  to  you  that  were  far  off,  and  peace  to  them 
that  were  nigh  :  for  through  him  we  both  have 
our  access  in  one  Spirit  unto  the  Father.  So 
then  ye  are  no  more  strangers  and  sojourners, 
but  ye  are  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of 
the  household  of  God,  being  built  upon  the  foun- 
dation of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  Christ  Jesus 
himself  being  the  chief  corner-stone."  ^ 

In  this  passage  we  see  that  the  central  thought 
is  that  Christ  abolished  in  his  flesh  the  law 
of  commandments  contained  in  ordinances. 
Through  this  abolition  of  the  law  the  middle 
wall  of  partition  between  the  Jew  and  the  Gen- 
tile was  broken  down,  and  the  enmity  between 
Jew  and  Gentile  was  done  away.  Before,  the 
Gentiles  had  no  hope  and  were  without  God  in 
the  world  ;  but  now,  through  this  abolition  of 
the  law,  they  had  become  fellow-citizens  with 
the  saints  and  of  the  household  of  God. 

All  this,  like  other  parts  of  Paul's  gospel,  has  a 
positive  side.  We  are  here  considering  only  such 
expressions  as  refer  to  the  remission  of  sins,  and 
to  Christ  as  the  propitiation,  and  thus  the  means 
of  such  remission.  By  his  death  the  past  of  the 
Gentile  as  well  as  the  past  of  the  Jew  had  been 

1  Ephesians  ii.  1 1-20. 


1 68  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

done  away.  The  Gentile,  like  the  Jew,  had  be- 
come a  new  man.  Each  started  afresh,  freed 
from  the  old  condemnation,  and  each  was  thus 
ready  for  the  new  life  which  came  through  Christ. 
Each  could  form  a  part  in  a  holy  temple  of  the 
Lord  in  whom  all  were  builded  together  for  a 
habitation  of  God  in  the  spirit. 

Figurative  Language. 

From  the  view  held  by  Paul  and  his  followers 
in  regard  to  the  death  of  Christ,  it  follows  very 
naturally  that  this  death  should  be  spoken  of  as 
a  sacrifice.  We  have  already  seen  that  sacrificial 
language  when  applied  to  the  death  of  Christ 
carries  with  it  no  presumption  in  favor  of  the 
traditional  theory  that  in  his  death  Christ  bore 
directly,  in  any  sense,  the  penalty  of  man's  sin. 
The  presumption  is  wholly  in  the  other  direc- 
tion. ^  We  have  now  to  notice  that  this  sacrifi- 
cial language  is  obviously  figurative.  There  was 
on  Calvary  no  sacrifice  in  the  technical  sense. 
There  was  no  priest  and  no  altar.  The  figure 
was,  however,  one  that  was  most  naturally  sug- 
gested. It  was  based  upon  two  points  of  resem- 
blance.   One  of  these  was  the  presence  of  a  slain 

^  See  chapter  i. 


^ 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 69 

victim  ;  the  other  was  that  through  the  death  of 
this  victim  forgiveness  of  sins  was  granted  to 
those  who  put  their  trust  in  it.  As  we  have 
already  seen,  the  figure  gives  no  hint  as  to  the 
manner  in  which,  according  to  the  thought  of 
Paul,  the  death  of  the  victim  accomplished  this 
result. 

The  purely  figurative  use  of  the  sacrificial  terms 
that  are  applied  to  the  death  of  Christ  is  very 
clearly  illustrated  by  the  manner  in  which  these 
terms  are  used  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
In  this  epistle  the  treatment  is  peculiarly  trans- 
parent. In  the  ninth  chapter  there  is  a  passage 
which  is  important  in  this  respect,  to  which  ref- 
erence has  been  made  in  another  place. ^  Here 
the  strongest  sacrificial  language  is  used,  and 
this  is  immediately  followed  by  an  explanation 
of  the  sense  in  which  it  is  to  be  understood.  The 
passage  is  as  follows  :  "  For  if  the  blood  of  goats 
and  bulls,  and  the  ashes  of  a  heifer  sprinkling 
them  that  have  been  defiled,  sanctify  unto  the 
cleanness  of  the  flesh  :  how  much  more  shall  the 
blood  of  Christ,  who  through  the  eternal  Spirit 
offered  himself  without  blemish  unto  God,  cleanse 
your  conscience  from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living 
1  Hebrews  ix.  13-15.     See  p.  133  f- 


I/O  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

Godf''  Here  the  cleansing  the  conscience  from 
dead  works  obviously  refers  to  the  abolition  of 
the  law  by  the  death  of  Christ.  Indeed,  the  ob- 
ject of  the  epistle  is  to  illustrate  this  emancipa- 
tion and  the  new  life  that  was  united  with  it. 
This  spiritual  freedom  is  what  is  referred  to  in 
the  sometimes  misunderstood  passage  with  which 
the  sixth  chapter  opens  :^  "  Wherefore  let  us  cease 
to  speak  of  the  first  principles  of  Christ,  and  press 
on  unto  perfection  ;  not  laying  again  a  foundation 
of  repentance  from  dead  works,  and  of  faith  to- 
ward God,  of  the  teaching  of  baptisms,  and  of 
laying  on  of  hands,  and  of  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  and  of  eternal  judgment.  And  this  will  we 
do,  if  God  permit."  All  that  is  here  left  behind, 
not  as  worthless  but  as  first  principles  already 
established,  was  common  to  both  branches  of 
the  early  church.  The  perfection  to  which  the 
writer  would  press  on  is  the  Pauline  doctrine  of 
the  emancipation  from  the  law  by  the  death  of 
Christ.  This  result  of  Christ's  death  the  writer 
commends  to  the  Jewish  readers  by  sacrificial 
language,  which,  however,  as  in  the  case  before 
us,  he  is  careful  to  explain.  The  most  striking 
illustrations  of  the  anti-Jewish  tendency  of  the 

1  Hebrews  vi.  1-3. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  I/I 

epistle  is  the  comparison  of  Melchizedek  and 
Christ,  which  will  be  spoken  of  later  :  and  the 
saying  in  the  last  chapter  in  regard  to  the  altar 
**  whereof  they  have  no  right  to  eat  which  serve 
the  tabernacle,"  which  has  been  already  re- 
ferred to.i 

Another  passage  in  which  the  writer  to  the 
Hebrews  makes  clear  the  sense  in  which  he  uses 
sacrificial  language  in  regard  to  the  death  of 
Christ  is  found  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  the  epis- 
tle. It  is  as  follows  :  "  For  by  one  offering  he 
hath  perfected  forever  them  that  are  sanctified. 
And  the  Holy  Ghost  also  beareth  witness  to  us  : 
for  after  he  hath  said, 

This  is  the  covenant  that  I  will  make  with  them 

After  those  days,  saith  the  Lord ; 

I  will  put  my  laws  on  their  heart, 

And  upon  their  mind  also  will  I  write  them ; 

then  saith  he. 

And  their  sins  and  their  iniquities  will  I  remember  no  more. 

Now  where  remission  of  these  is,  there  is  no 
more  offering  for  sin."  ^ 

In  this  passage  the  word  "perfected,"  which 
occurs  at  its  opening,  is  hardly  in  conformity 

1  Hebrews  xiii.  lo.     See  p.  148  f. 

2  Hebrews  x.  14-18 ;  Jeremiah  xxxi.  33  f. 


172  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

with  a  strict  use  of  the  sacrificial  figure.  The 
language  of  the  quotation  from  the  prophet  which 
speaks  of  putting  the  divine  laws  upon  the  heart 
and  writing  them  upon  the  mind,  the  author  evi- 
dently understands  as  prophetic  of  the  abolition 
of  the  Mosaic  law  and  the  spiritual  freedom  of 
the  Christian.  The  last  clauses  show  in  what 
sense  the  sacrificial  figure  is  used.  Since  through 
the  death  of  Christ  there  is  remission  of  sins,  this 
death  takes  the  place  of  sacrifices,  and  these,  for 
the  Christian,  cease  forever. 

The  quotation  just  made  not  only  illustrates 
the  fact  that  sacrificial  language,  when  used  in 
connection  with  the  death  of  Christ,  has  a  figur- 
ative sense,  but  also  the  fact  that  the  sacrificial 
figure  is  used  very  loosely.  A  further  example 
of  this  looseness  is  found  in  the  fact  that  Christ 
is  spoken  of  both  as  priest  and  victim.  Other 
figures  besides  that  of  sacrifice  are  also  used  to 
describe  the  atoning  effect  of  the  death  of 
Christ.  The  idea  of  redemption  is  frequently 
used  in  this  connection.  Thus  we  read,  "In 
whom  we  have  our  redemption  through  his  blood, 
the  forgiveness  of  our  trespasses."  ^  The  idea 
of  a  testament  which  is  ineffective  before  the 

1  Ephesians  i.  7. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 73 

death  of  the  testator  is  used  to  express  the  same 
thing.  In  the  ninth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  we  have  all  these  figures  used  in 
the  same  presentation.^  First,  we  read  of  a 
death  having  taken  place  for  the  redemption  of 
the  sins  that  were  under  the  first  covenant." 
In  explanation  it  is  said,  "  For  where  a  testament 
is,  there  must  of  necessity  be  the  death  of  him 
who  made  it."  After  the  idea  of  the  death  of  a 
testator  had  been  dwelt  upon,  the  passage  pro- 
ceeds: "Wherefore,  even  the  first  covenant  hath 
not  been  dedicated  without  blood."  Then  fol- 
lows an  account  of  the  use  of  blood  in  instituting 
the  first  covenant,  and  the  passage  closes  :  **  And 
according  to  the  law,  I  may  almost  say,  all  things 
are  cleansed  with  blood,  and  apart  from  the  shed- 
ding of  blood  there  is  no  remission."  Here  we 
have  the  fact  that  a  will  is  of  no  effect  before 
the  death  of  the  testator,  placed  as  the  connect- 
ing link  between  the  statement  that  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  sins  under  the  first  covenant  was 
accomplished  by  a  death,  and  the  statement  of 
the  necessity  of  the  shedding  of  sacrificial  blood 
for  the  remission  of  sins  ;  the  connection  being 
indicated  in  the  one  case  by  the  particle  "  for," 

1  Hebrews  ix.  15-22. 


1/4  '^^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

and  in  the  other  by  a  "  therefore."  Of  these  fig< 
ures,  the  one  taken  from  the  facts  in  regard  to  a 
will  is  the  least  to  the  point.  Its  presence  with 
the  others  shows,  however,  how  loosely  these  are 
taken.  The  others,  indeed,  —  that  which  involves 
the  idea  of  redemption  and  that  based  upon  sac- 
rifice, —  are  so  closely  allied  that  they  might 
easily  be  used  in  the  same  connection.  The  idea 
of  the  testament  is  wholly  foreign  to  them. 

Another  figure  which  is  used  to  illustrate  the 
freedom  from  the  law  that  was  accomplished  by 
the  death  of  Christ  is  that  of  divorce  by  death. 
This  is  urged  by  Paul  in  the  seventh  chapter  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.^  It  is  a  figure  which 
has  little  significance  for  the  traditional  interpre- 
tation of  Paul's  teaching,  but  which  has  great 
pertinence  when  we  reach  his  real  thought.  The 
presentation  of  the  figure  is  confused.  The  wife 
is  said  to  be  freed  from  legal  obligation  to  her 
husband  by  his  death.  The  Christian  is  freed 
from  bondage  to  the  law  by  his  own  death  to  it. 
This  confusion  is,  however,  superficial  and  verbal. 
After  the  death  of  the  husband,  the  wife,  so  far 
as  legal  obligations  are  concerned,  might  be  said 
to  be  dead  to  him.    Paul  might  have  spoken  with 

1  Romans  vii.  i-6. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1/5 

propriety  of  the  law  as  dead.  This  was  doubtless 
what  was  in  his  mind.  In  the  Epistle  to  the 
Colossians,  as  we  have  seen,  the  law  is  spoken  of 
as  crucified.  There  we  read  of  '*  the  bond  writ- 
ten in  ordinances  that  was  against  us,"  that  God 
"  hath  taken  it  out  of  the  way,  nailing  it  to  the 
cross."  1  Paul's  thought  in  the  figure  based  upon 
marriage  and  divorce  is  that  the  law  being  dead 
the  believer  cannot  be  condemned  for  uniting 
himself  to  "  him  who  was  raised  from  the  dead." 
It  was  probably  for  the  sake  of  greater  ease  of 
expression  that  the  figure  was,  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously, superficially  changed. 

The  figure  used  by  Paul  in  the  opening  of  the 
sixth  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  based 
upon  the  idea  of  being  buried  with  Christ  in  bap- 
tism and  rising  with  him  to  newness  of  life,  does 
not  demand  our  present  consideration,  as  it  rep- 
resents an  aspect  of  the  Christian  life  quite  dif- 
ferent from  that  which  we  are  at  present  consid- 
ering. 

The  looseness  with  which  the  sacrificial  figure 
is  used  may  be  further  illustrated  by  the  fact 
that  sacrificial  terms  are  applied  not  merely  to 
the  death  of  Christ,  but  to  other  aspects  of  the 

1  Colossians  ii.  14. 


176  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Christian's  relation  to  God.  These  varied  appli- 
cations stand  often  in  close  connection  with  one 
another.  The  passage  in  the  thirteenth  chapter 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  compares 
Christ  to  the  sacrificial  victim  which  was  burned 
without  the  camp,  proceeds  :  "  Through  him  then 
let  us  offer  up  a  sacrifice  of  praise  to  God  con- 
tinually, that  is,  the  fruit  of  lips  which  make 
confession  to  his  name.  But  to  do  good  and  to 
communicate  forget  not  :  for  with  such  sacrifices 
God  is  well  pleased."  ^ 

2  Corinthians  v.  21. 

We  have  thus  far  considered  chiefly  such  pas- 
sages in  the  writings  of  Paul  and  his  followers 
as  were  suited  to  make  clear  his  central  and  fun- 
damental thought.  We  have  now  to  consider 
certain  more  abstract  statements  of  Paul  which 
assume  in  the  reader  a  knowledge  of  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  his  teaching.  The  other  pas- 
sages state  definitely  Paul's  thought.  We  have 
to  use  the  result  thus  reached  to  throw  light 
upon  those  that  are  more  obscure.  In  this  ap- 
plication of  our  result  we  have  a  test  of  its  truth. 
If   where    the   current   view  of    Paul's  doctrine 

1  Hebrews  xiii.  15, 16. 


THE    GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 7/ 

introduces  only  confusion,  the  view  that  I  am 
urging  brings  clearness  and  simplicity,  the  truth 
of  this  view  will  receive  the  best  confirmation. 

The  principal  passage  that  we  have  thus  to 
consider  is  the  great  and  central  statement  found 
in  Romans  iii.  24-26.  Before  studying  this,  how- 
ever, we  will  turn  to  one  that  is  simpler  but  no 
less  important.  The  passage  to  which  I  refer  is 
the  twenty-first  verse  of  the  fifth  chapter  of  the 
Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  :  "  Him  who 
knew  no  sin  he  made  to  be  sin  on  our  behalf ; 
that  we  might  become  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  him."  In  connection  with  this  verse  we  read 
in  Meyer's  Commentary ^  as  follows:  "It  is  to 
be  noted  .  .  .  that  a/xaprtW,  just  like  Kardpa,  Gal. 
iii.  13,  includes  in  itself  the  notion  of  guilt;  fur- 
ther, that  the  guilt  of  which  Christ,  made  to  be 
sin  and  a  curse  by  God,  appears  as  bearer  was 
not  his  own  (fxrjyvouTa  d/xaprtW),  and  that  hence  the 
guilt  of  men  who  through  his  death  were  to  be  jus- 
tified by  God  was  transferred \o  him  ;  consequently 
the  justification  of  men  is  imputative^  I  do  not 
know  that  there  is  anything  in  the  passage  be- 
fore us  which  would  necessarily  forbid  this  inter- 
pretation.   It  is  different  with  the  passage  in  the 

^  In  a  note. 


178  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

Epistle  to  the  Galatians  to  which  the  critic  refers. 
If  the  words  **  who  knew  no  sin  "  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians  might  suggest  imputation,  the 
words  of  Galatians  iii.  13  exclude  this  notion. 
There,  as  we  have  seen,  Christ  is  accursed,  not 
on  account  of  the  sins  of  others,  but  on  account 
of  the  situation  in  which  he  was  himself  placed. 
He  was  accursed  because  he  himself  was  cruci- 
fied. The  critic  is  right  in  using  one  of  these 
passages  to  throw  light  upon  the  other,  but  the 
comparison  leads  to  a  result  very  different  from 
that  reached  by  him.  The  verse  from  the  Epis- 
tle to  the  Galatians  makes  impossible  the  inter- 
pretation given  to  the  verse  from  the  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians.  Even  without  this  comparison, 
the  interpretation  just  cited  is  a  far  fetched  one. 
If  there  is  nothing  in  the  passage  to  forbid  it, 
there  is  nothing  to  justify  it. 

When  the  two  passages,  2  Corinthians  v.  21 
and  Galatians  iii.  13,  are  compared,  with  no  com- 
plication with  traditional  theories,  and  with  no 
assumption  of  anything  which  the  passages  do 
not  contain,  the  result  is  very  simple.  In  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians  we  read  that  Christ  was 
made  a  curse  through  being  crucified.  In  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians. we  read  that  though  he 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 79 

knew  no  sin,  yet  he  was  made  sin.  In  the  light 
of  the  former  passage  these  words  lose  even  the 
air  of  paradox.  In  himself,  in  his  life,  Christ  did 
not  know  sin.  In  his  death  on  the  cross  he  '*  was 
made  sin."  This  was  not  by  imputation,  but  by 
his  own  position.  We  see  the  special  apposite- 
ness  of  the  words  "  was  made  sin!'  He  was  not 
made  a  sinner.  He  had  committed  no  sin.  He 
was  not  even  put  in  the  place  of  the  sinner.  He 
was  made  "sin  "  and  a  "curse"  because  the  law 
pronounces  the  crucified  to  be  accursed. 

Romans  iii.  24-26. 

We  are  now  ready  to  consider  that  great  state- 
ment of  Paul  to  which  I  have  already  referred, 
and  which  might  almost  be  regarded  as  the  text 
of  this  whole  discussion.  It  is  as  follows  :  "  Be- 
ing justified  freely  by  his  grace  through  the  re- 
demption that  is  in  Christ  Jesus  :  whom  God 
set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation,  through  faith,  by 
his  blood,  to  show  his  righteousness,  because  of 
the  passing  over  of  the  sins  done  aforetime,  in 
the  forbearance  of  God  ;  for  the  showing,  I  say, 
of  his  righteousness  at  this  present  season  :  that 
he  might  himself  be  just,  and  the  justifier  of  him 
that  hath  faith  in  Jesus."  _ 

UNIVERgiTY  J 


l8o  THE    GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

This  passage  has  too  often  been  made  the 
starting-point  in  the  discussion  of  Paul's  doc- 
trine of  the  atonement.  It  should  stand  at  the 
conclusion  of  such  a  discussion  rather  than  at 
the  beginning.  Taken  by  itself,  it  is  extremely 
large  and  vague.  If  the  idea  of  sacrifice  carried 
with  it,  as  it  has  been  so  often  supposed  to  do, 
the  notion  of  a  transferrence  of  penalty  from  the 
sinner  to  the  victim,  then  the  word  "propitia- 
tion "  might  suggest  something  definite  in  regard 
to  the  nature  of  the  efficacy  of  the  death  of 
Christ.  Since  the  idea  of  sacrifice  had,  as  we 
have  seen,  no  such  meaning,  the  passage,  taken 
by  itself,  offers  no  hint  of  its  significance.  I 
suppose  that  it  is  this  very  vagueness  which  has 
made  it  so  attractive  to  many.  It  affords  great 
freedom  for  speculation.  Theories  and  fancies 
have  made  their  nests  in  it,  like  rooks  in  some 
old  tower. 

In  approaching  the  consideration  of  this  pas- 
sage, it  is  important  to  consider  first  the  struc- 
ture of  the  sentence,  and  to  observe  the  formal 
relation  of  its  parts  to  one  another.  The  sen- 
tence is  very  long  and  involved  ;  but  at  the  heart 
of  it  we  find  two  statements  which  are  very 
closely  connected.    They  both  undertake  to  show 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  l8l 

why  God  set  forth  Christ  Jesus  to  be  a  propitia- 
tion. One  of  these  says  that  it  was  "to  show 
his  righteousness,  because  of  fthe  passing  over 
of  the  sins  done  aforetime."  The  second  goes 
back  to  the  important  word  "righteousness,'* 
and,  starting  afresh  from  that,  states  that  the 
propitiation  was  accomplished  that  God  "might 
be  just  and  the  justifier  of  him  that  hath  faith 
in  Jesus."  The  relation  between  these  two 
members  of  the  sentence  to  one  another  is,  in 
our  English  translation,  clearly  expressed  by  the 
words  ^^  I  say!'  which  the  translators  introduced 
in  order  that  the  connection  might  be  readily 
perceived.  Any  one  looking  at  these  clauses 
from  the  outside,  and  having  little  or  no  know^ 
ledge  of  the  thought  of  Paul,  would  natural]^ 
assume  that  the  two  clauses  express  the  same 
thought ;  the  one  saying  under  one  form  what 
the  other  says  under  another.  The  construc- 
tion of  the  sentence  would  seem  to  imply  that 
Paul  stated  an  idea,  and  then,  for  some  reason, 
made  a  restatement  of  the  same  thought.  All 
the  commentators  whom  I  have  consulted  take, 
however,  a  different  view  of  the  passage.  While 
the  second  of  the  clauses  under  consideration 
ref,ers  in  so  many  words  to  the  justification  of 


1 82  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

those  who  beUeve  in  Christ,  the  former  of  them 
is  made  by  these  commentators  to  refer  to  the 
sins  that  had  been  committed  in  the  world  be-" 
fore  the  appearance  of  Christ.  Meyer  explains 
that  the  transaction  was  "  on  account  of  the 
passing  by  of  sins  that  had  previously  taken 
place,  i.  e.y  because  He  [God]  had  allowed  the 
pre-Christian  sins  to  go  without  punishment, 
whereby  His  righteousness  had  been  lost  sight 
of  and  obscured,  and  therefore  came  to  need  an 
cvSci^ts  for  men.  Thus  the  atonement  accom- 
plished in  Christ  became  the  divine  '  Theodicee 
for  the  past  history  of  the  world'  (Tholuck)." 

The  weight  of  authority  is  so  strong  in  favor 
of  this  construction,  that  if  it  were  a  matter  to 
be  determined  by  technical  scholarship,  I,  for 
one,  should  not  dare  to  question  it.  It  is,  how- 
ever, not  a  matter  of  translation  but  one  of  in- 
terpretation ;  and  the  interpretation  that  has 
just  been  given  is  connected  with  a  view  of  the 
general  teaching  of  Paul  which  I  believe  to  be 
false.  We  therefore  need  not  hesitate  to  con- 
sider it  on  its  merits. 

The  common  interpretation  is  met  by  objec- 
tions, each  one  of  which  is  serious,  and  which 
taken  together  appear  to  me  to  be  fatal. 


THE  GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 83 

In  the  first  place,  this  interpretation  makes  the 
sentence  incoherent  and  self-contradictory.  It 
makes  Paul  give  two  reasons  for  the  same  trans- 
action, and  to  give  them  as  if  they  were  one  rea- 
son. The  first  of  the  two  clauses  makes  the 
transaction  look  backward,  the  second  makes  it 
look  forward.  Now  the  same  transaction  may 
easily  involve  these  two  aspects;  but  the  diffi- 
culty is  that  this  interpretation  makes  Paul  give 
the  two  as  though  they  were  one  and  the  same. 
Perhaps  I  can  best  make  the  point  clear  by  an 
illustration.  In  the  time  of  the  war  with  Mexico 
patriotic  orators  were  in  the  habit  of  exclaiming, 
"We  are  fighting  to  secure  indemnity  for  the 
past  and  security  for  the  future."  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  any  speaker,  unless  possibly  some  after- 
dinner  orator,  ever  exclaimed,  "We  are  fighting 
for  indemnity  for  the  past ;  fighting,  I  say,  for 
security  for  the  future."  Yet  it  is  precisely  such 
incoherent  eloquence  which  the  interpretation 
under  consideration  ascribes  to  Paul. 

A  second  objection  is  that  this  interpretation 
introduces  a  subject  which  is  wholly  foreign  to 
the  matter  of  Paul's  discourse.  Inverses  21  and 
22  he  stated  the  theme  which  he  proposed  to 
consider.     He  says  :  "  But  now  apart  from  the 


1 84  THE    GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

law  a  righteousness  of  God  hath  been  manifested, 
.  .  .  even  the  righteousness  through  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ  unto  all  them  that  believe."  This  theme 
he  presents  through  all  the  rest  of  the  chapter. 
The  interpretation  we  are  considering,  however, 
makes  him  pause  in  his  fervid  eloquence,  and 
turn  aside  to  contemplate  for  a  moment  some- 
thing that  concerned  pre-Christian  times.  After 
this  digression  he  turns  back  to  the  course  of 
thought  that  he  had  been  following. 

In  the  third  place,  the  thought  thus  introduced 
is  in  absolute  contradiction  to  what  Paul  had 
been  saying  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  epistle. 
Paul  had  been  speaking  of  the  terrors  of  the  law. 
He  had  said  :  **  For  the  wrath  of  God  is  revealed 
from  heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and  unright- 
eousness of  men."  ^  He  had  exclaimed  to  the 
sinner,  that  he  was  treasuring  up  for  himself 
"  wrath  in  the  day  of  wrath  and  revelation  of  the 
righteous  judgment  of  God."^  He  had  said  that 
unto  them  that  "  obey  unrighteousness  shall  be 
wrath  and  indignation,  tribulation  and  anguish, 
upon  every  soul  of  man  that  worketh  evil."^ 
He  had  said  :  "  For  as  many  as  have  sinned 
without  law  shall  also  perish  without  law :  and 

1  Romans  i.  i8.  ^  Romans  ii.  5.  ^  Romans  ii.  8  f. 


THE  GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 85 

as  many  as  have  sinned  under  law  shall  be  judged 
by  law."  ^  Yet  in  the  face  of  all  this,  the  com- 
mon interpretation  makes  Paul  imply  that,  on 
account  of  the  mildness  and  remissness  of  God 
in  the  past  a  "  theodicy "  was  needed.  The 
only  theodicy  that  would  be  in  keeping  with 
these  awful  utterances  of  Paul  was  that  of  the 
judgment  day. 

It  is  beside  the  mark  to  refer  in  this  connec- 
tion to  the  words  that  are  put  into  Paul's  mouth 
in  the  book  of  Acts.  There  he  is  made  to  speak 
of  an  overlooking  of  sins  in  the  past.  In  the 
expressive  language  of  King  James's  version,  he 
is  represented  as  saying :  "  And  the  times  of  this 
ignorance  God  winked  at."  ^  These  elaborate 
speeches  in  the  book  of  Acts  cannot,  under  the 
most  favorable  judgment,  be  regarded  as  literal 
statements  of  what  the  speakers  actually  said. 
Further,  if  Paul  did  say  this,  it  would  throw  no 
light  on  the  passage  before  us,  where  the  whole 
course  of  the  thought  is  different.  As,  however, 
this  passage  has  been  cited  in  connection  with 
that  now  under  consideration  from  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans,  attention  may  be  called  to  its 
harmony  with  the  view  of  the  latter  that  I  am 

1  Romans  ii.  12.  2  Acts  xvii.  30. 


1 86  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

urging.  When  I  said,  a  few  lines  back,  that  the 
only  theodicy  which  Paul's  words  would  allow 
was  that  of  the  judgment  day,  I  did  not  have  in 
mind  this  passage  in  the  book  of  Acts :  "  The 
times  of  ignorance  therefore  God  overlooked ; 
but  now  he  commandeth  men  that  they  should 
all  everywhere  repent  :  inasmuch  as  he  hath  ap- 
pointed a  day,  in  the  which  he  will  judge  the 
world."  1  According  to  this  statement  laxity  is 
followed  by  the  judgment.  The  whole  passage 
should,  however,  be  left  out  of  the  account  in 
this  discussion. 

We  must  assume,  then,  that  the  two  clauses 
which  we  have  been  considering  say  the  same 
thing  in  different  forms  ;  that  the  words  "  right- 
eousness "  (StKatoo-wiys)  and  "just"  (lUaiov)  not 
only  refer  to  the  same  quality,  but  that  their 
application  is  to  the  same  persons.  Paul  first 
says  :  "  Whom  God  set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation, 
through  faith,  by  his  blood,  to  show  his  right- 
eousness, because  of  the  passing  over  of  the 
sins  done  aforetime,  in  the  forbearance  of  God." 
This,  however,  is  an  abstract  statement.  It  gives 
the  object  of  the  transaction  in  a  general  way, 
suggesting  the  principle  of  the  thing,  but  not  its 

1  Acts  xvii.  30,  31. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 8/ 

direct  application.  He  therefore  goes  back  and 
starts  afresh  with  the  principal  word  of  the  state- 
ment just  referred  to,  in  order  to  say  precisely 
whose  were  the  sins  that  were  thus  passed  over. 
He  goes  on  :  "  For  the  showing,  I  say,  of  his 
righteousness  at  this  present  season  ;  that  He 
might  himself  be  just  and  the  justifier  of  him 
that  hath  faith  in  Jesus." 

This  is  the  construction  which  the  form  of  the 
sentence  seems  peremptorily  to  require,  and  the 
forsaking  of  which  involves,  as  we  have  seen, 
many  difficulties.  The  difficulties  which  this 
construction  may  suggest  to  any  reader,  I  hope 
will  disappear  when  we  consider  the  real  mean- 
ing of  the  passage. 

Passing  from  the  consideration  of  the  formal 
relation  of  the  clauses  of  the  passage  to  one 
another,  we  have  now  to  seek  its  substantial 
meaning. 

The  first  question  that  meets  us  is  as  to  the 
relation  between  this  passage  and  the  statements 
that  are  made  by  Paul  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Ga- 
latians,  which  we  have  before  considered. 

We  here  fall  back  upon  certain  assumptions 
that  were  made  by  us  in  entering  upon  this  gen- 
eral  discussion.^     These    assumptions   were   in 

1  Pages  197  ff. 


1 88  THE    GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

effect  that,  unless  there  were  reasons  to  the  con- 
trary, wherever  Paul  speaks  of  the  objective  as- 
pect of  the  atonement  he  must  be  considered  to 
mean  substantially  the  same  thing,  and  that  the 
more  concrete  statements  should  be  used  to  ex- 
plain those  that  are  more  abstract.  According 
to  these  assumptions,  we  should  explain  this  pas- 
sage, which  is  extremely  abstract,  by  the  state- 
ments in  the  second  and  third  chapters  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 

This  course  was,  as  I  have  intimated,  to  be  fol- 
lowed in  case  there  were  no  insuperable  objec- 
tions. Do  such  objections  exist  in  the  present 
case  .''  Professor  Lipsius,  in  his  commentary  on 
the  passage,  insists  that  such  objections  do  exist. 
He  says :  "  Notice  that  here  only  the  sacrificial 
quality  of  the  blood  of  Christ  is  made  prominent, 
while  there  is  no  reference  to  the  manner  of  the 
death,  the  death  on  the  cross."  If  we  must  be 
as  literal  as  this,  we  shall  have  to  meet  still  other 
complications.  Paul  elsewhere  says  that,  "We 
were  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  his  Son."  ^ 
In  this  passage  neither  the  cross  nor  the  blood 
is  referred  to.  If  the  principle  of  Lipsius  is  to 
be  applied  in  one  case,  there  is  no  reason  why  it 

1  Romans  v.  lo. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 89 

should  not  be  applied  in  all  cases.  We  should 
then  have  three  different  aspects  of  the  objec- 
tive efficiency  of  the  death  of  Christ ;  one,  in 
which  the  death  itself  should  be  the  effective 
element,  as  in  the  theory  of  Saint  Anselm  and  of 
Dr.  Cave  ;  another,  in  which  the  blood  should 
be  the  effective  element ;  this  might  possibly  sig- 
nify violence  and  consequent  suffering,  accord- 
ing to  the  theory  of  Dr.  Shedd  ;  or  it  might  refer 
to  its  sacrificial  character,  which  in  this  case 
would  not  be  recognized  in  "  the  death."  The 
third  would  refer  to  the  death  upon  the  cross. 
Yet,  further,  Paul  reminds  the  Ephesians  that 
God  in  Christ  hath  forgiven  them.^  In  this  pas- 
sage we  would  seem  to  have  an  atonement  from 
which  the  death  and  the  blood  and  the  cross  are 
alike  excluded.  We  should  then  have  a  fourth 
aspect  of  the  atonement. 

How  much  simpler  is  it  to  assume  that  Paul 
in  all  these  cases  meant  the  same  thing.  This 
is  not  only  simpler,  it  is  more  reasonable.  Jesus 
died  only  once,  and  that  was  on  the  cross.  His 
blood  was  shed  only  once,  and  that  was  upon  the 
cross.  It  is  reasonable,  therefore,  to  assume 
that  when  the  death  of  Christ  is  spoken  of,  Paul 

^  Ephesians  iv.  32. 


190  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

means  his  death  as  it  actually  occurred,  namely, 
his  death  on  the  cross.  When  his  blood  is  re- 
ferred to,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Paul 
means  his  blood  as  it  was  actually  shed,  that  is, 
on  the  cross.  We  may  illustrate  this  by  the 
manner  in  which  the  ordinary  sacrificial  victim 
is  spoken  of.  The  writer  to  the  Hebrews  speaks 
of  "the  blood  of  goats  and  bulls"  as  sanctifying 
"  unto  the  cleanness  of  the  flesh."  ^  The  blood 
of  bulls  and  of  goats  was  never  believed  to  have 
in  itself  any  cleansing  efficacy.  The  blood  that 
was  shed  in  the  shambles  was  valueless.  It  was 
the  blood  that  was  shed  under  special  circum- 
stances, namely,  according  to  the  appointed  rites 
of  the  sacrifice,  which  had  power.  As  the  blood 
of  the  bull  or  the  goat  was  taken  to  represent 
the  concrete  whole  of  the  sacrifice  with  the  altar 
and  the  solemn  rites,  so  the  blood  of  Christ 
should  be  taken  as  representing  the  concrete 
whole  which  included  all  the  circumstances  of 
his  death.  As  the  blood  of  the  victim  had  no 
atoning  force  except  as  shed  amid  the  sanctities 
of  the  temple,  so  it  is  natural  to  assume  that  the 
blood  of  Christ  had  no  atoning  efficacy,  except 
as  it  was  shed  in  the  midst  of  the  pollution  of 

the  cross. 

1  Hebrews  ix.  13. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  I9I 

The  manner  in  which  different  aspects  of  the 
event  are  used  by  the  New  Testament  writers 
to  express  the  same  relation  may  be  specially 
illustrated  by  a  statement  made  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Ephesians.  Here  we  read  :  '*  But  now  in 
Christ  Jesus  ye  that  once  were  far  off  are  made 
nigh  in  the  blood  of  Christ."  ^  This  whole  pas- 
sage is  unmistakably  speaking  of  the  adoption  of 
the  Gentiles  into  the  sweep  of  the  divine  prom- 
ises, because  the  "  middle  wall  of  partition,"  by 
which  we  are  told  is  meant  "the  law  of  com- 
mandments contained  in  ordinances,"  was  broken 
down  by  Christ.  The  blood  of  Christ  is  thus 
used  to  express  the  efficiency  of  the  crucifixion 
in  regard  to  the  doing  away  of  the  law.  Asso- 
ciations with  other  interpretations  may  make 
the  passage  Romans  iii.  25  appear  to  some  to 
have  a  different  meaning.  In  regard  to  the  pas- 
sage which  I  just  quoted  from  the  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  We  are  told 
in  it,  in  so  many  words,  that  it  refers  to  the  do- 
ing away  of  the  law.  That  is  precisely  what 
Paul  tells  us  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  was 
accomplished  by  the  curse  which  the  law  pro- 
nounced upon  the  crucified.^     He  there  says  that 

'1  Ephesians  ii.  13.  2  Galatians  iii.  13  f. 


192  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

Christ  by  his  crucifixion  was  made  a  curse  for  us, 
*'that  upon  the  Gentiles  might  come  the  bless- 
ing of  Abraham  in  Christ  Jesus."  In  these  two 
passages,  then,  we  have  the  abolition  of  the  law 
spoken  of.  In  one  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  in 
the  other  the  cross  of  Christ,  is  referred  to  as 
accomplishing  this  result. 

In  fact,  all  the  expressions  that  have  been  re- 
ferred to,  as  well  as  others,  seem  to  be  used  by 
Paul  to  express  the  same  central  fact.  Some- 
times it  is  that  Christ  was  delivered  up  for  us 
all.^  Sometimes  it  is  that  in  him  we  are  forgiven.^ 
Sometimes  the  death  of  Christ,^  sometimes  his 
blood,*  sometimes  his  crucifixion  is  specified.^ 
So  far  as  these  expressions  refer  to  the  objective 
aspect  of  the  atonement  accomplished  by  the 
death  of  Christ,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
they  all  mean  substantially  the  same  thing. 
Sometimes  Paul  would  seem  to  take  one  or  the 
other  word  simply  because  it  was  the  one  that 
happened  to  come  into  his  mind.  There  is  some- 
times, however,  evidently  a  reason  for  the  use 
of  one  of  these  terms  rather  than  another.  In 
the  passages  before  us,  Romans  iii.  25,  and  Ga- 

1  Romans  viii.  32.        2  Ephesians  iv.  32.  ^  Romans  v.  10. 

4  Romans  v.  9.  ^  Galatians  iii.  13. 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL.  1 93 

latians  iii.  13,  there  is  an  obvious  reason  why  the 
blood  of  Christ  is  referred  to  in  the  one  case, 
and  the  cross  in  the  other.  To  the  Galatians 
Paul  was  speaking  literally.  He  feared  that  they 
were  being  drawn  away  from  the  gospel  that 
he  had  preached  to  them,  and  he  wished  to  re- 
mind them  of  the  arguments  by  which  his  teach- 
ing was  supported.  He  therefore  tells  them 
©utright  in  what  manner  the  cross  was  the  means 
of  doing  away  with  the  law  and  of  introducing 
the  consequent  higher  life  of  the  spirit.  In 
writing  to  the  Romans,  Paul  was  not  arguing,  and 
he  assumed  that  his  readers  understood  what 
he  was  talking  about.  If  they  had  not  known 
this  in  advance,  the  passage  would  have  been  as 
meaningless  to  them  as  it  has  been  to  later  gen- 
erations. Moreover,  in  this  passage  Paul  is  speak- 
ing figuratively.  He  is  comparing  Jesus  to  the 
sacrificial  victim.^     I  suppose  that  it  will  not  be 

^  *'/A.o<rTrjptoi/ cannot  stand  for  a  means  of  atonement  in  gen- 
eral. This  is  too  vague.  The  word  flO/xa  must  be  understood." 
Lipsius'  Commentary,  a.  1. 

It  should  be  stated  that  Lipsius  does  not  accept  the  view  that 
the  sacrificial  victim  among  the  Hebrews  was  punished  in  the 
place  of  the  sinner.  In  the  Hebrew  sacrifice  he  sees  "  a  cov- 
ering of  the  sinner  and  of  his  guilt  before  the  eyes  of  God 
through  the  blood  of  the  sacrifice,  by  which  the  offerer  mani- 


194  ^-^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

contended  that  this  language  is  not  figurative. 
Put  what  meaning  we  will  into  the  death  of 
Christ,  we  cannot  make  of  his  death  a  literal  sac- 
rifice.i  It  might  take  the  place  of  a  sacrifice, 
but  it  was  not  a  sacrifice  in  any  literal  or  ordi- 
nary meaning  of  the  term.  Paul  was  too  good  a 
rhetorician  to  say  that  "  God  set  forth  "  Christ 
Jesus  "to  be  a  propitiation  upon  the  cross  ;"  for 
the  sacrificial  victim  was  not  crucified.  What 
he  says  is,  that  he  was  set  forth  to  be  a  propi- 
tiation in,  or  by  means  of,  his  blood  ;  and  thus 
the  picture  is  complete.  From  his  youth  the 
bloody  sacrifice  must  have  impressed  Paul  more 
than  almost  anything  beside.  The  image  of  the 
slain  Christ  must  have  haunted  with  equal  vivid- 
ness his  imagination.  Since  the  death  of  Christ 
practically  accompHshed  what  the  death  of  the 

fests  his  recognition  of  the  fact  that  he  deserves  punishment." 
On  the  other  hand,  Weiss,  in  the  eighth  edition  of  Meyer's  Com- 
mentary on  the  Romatis,  urges  that  iKaa-riipiov  signifies  a  means 
of  atonement  in  general.  This  seems  to  me  to  take  all  special 
meaning  out  of  the  passage,  and  leaves  the  words  "  in  his  blood  " 
without  definite  application.  While,  however,  in  the  text  I  ac- 
cept the  position  of  Lipsius  in  regard  to  this  word,  the  difference 
is  of  no  importance  so  far  as  my  general  interpretation  of  Paul's 
teaching  is  concerned. 
1  Compare  pp.  i6S  ff. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 95 

sacrificial  victim  was  meant  to  accomplish,  it  is 
not  strange  that  the  two  flowed  together  and 
formed  one  picture  to  his  thought. 

What  has  just  been  said  gains  additional  force 
when  we  notice  that  the  whole  framework  of 
the  thought  in  which  the  passage  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  that  we  are  considering  has  its 
place  is  precisely  that  in  which  the  verses  from 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  which  we  have  con- 
sidered have  their  place.  In  both  epistles  Paul 
urges  the  hopelessness  of  salvation  under  the 
law.  To  the  Romans  he  said  :  "  By  the  works 
of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  be  justified."  ^  To  the 
Galatians  he  said  :  "  Now  that  no  man  is  justi- 
fied by  the  law  in  the  sight  of  God,  is  evident."  ^ 
To  both  he  was  insisting  that  through  Christ  the 
believer  escaped  from  the  power  of  the  law.  To 
the  Romans  he  said :  ''  But  now  apart  from  the 
law  a  righteousness  of  God  hath  been  mani- 
fested." ^  To  the  Galatians  he  said  that  Christ 
"redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law."*  In 
both  cases  there  was  the  same  problem  to  be 
solved,  namely,  to  honor  the  law  while  setting 
it  aside.    In  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  the  word 

1  Romans  iii.  20.  2  Galatians  iii.  11. 

8  Romans  iii.  21.  *  Galatians  iii.  13. 


196  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

righteousness,  StKatoo-wry,  is  used,  as  the  best  com- 
mentators insist,  in  a  forensic  sense.  It  signifies 
the  giving  to  the  law  the  honor  which  is  its  due. 
It  will  be  noticed  that  the  propitiation  is  not  set 
forth  in  order  that  sins  before  committed  may- 
be passed  over,  or  in  order  that  the  believer  may 
be  justified.  All  this  is,  in  the  passage,  taken 
for  granted.  It  was  implied  in  the  promise  to 
Abraham,  as  Paul  elsewhere  tells  us,  that  the 
believer  was  to  be  accepted  without  regard  to 
the  law.^  The  righteousness  of  God  was  to  be 
shown  on  account  of  this  passing  over  of  former 
sins.  He  was  to  be  just  while  justifying  the  be- 
liever. In  other  words,  the  law  was  to  be  hon- 
ored even  while  it  was  annulled.  With  a  like  sig- 
nificance Paul  exclaims  :  "  I  through  the  law  died 
unto  the  law."^  Putting  the  two  passages  to- 
gether, we  reach  the  result  that  God  shows  his 
righteousness,  that  is,  his  respect  for  the  law,  or 
as  we  should  say  in  regard  to  men,  his  obedience 
to  the  law,  by  making  the  law  itself  the  instru- 
ment of  its  own  annulment.  How  this  is  accom- 
plished Paul  tells  us  in  the  thirteenth  verse  of 
the  third  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 

1  Compare  Galatians  iii.  8,  et passim. 

2  Galatians  ii.  19. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 97 

Christ  by  his  crucifixion  undergoes  the  curse  of 
the  law.  He  becomes  legally  polluted.  Thus  he 
and  his  followers  are  made  free  of  the  law  by 
becoming  outcasts  from  it,  and,  as  we  have  seen 
elsewhere,  are  made  free  from  the  condemnation 
of  the  sins  that  had  been  committed  under  the 
law.  Thus,  as  we  might  have  expected,  we  find 
the  two  passages  saying  substantially  the  same 
thing. 

It  is  important  to  notice  the  precise  phraseol- 
ogy that  is  used  by  Paul  in  regard  to  the  propi- 
tiation that  was  in  Christ.  It  was  to  show  the 
righteousness  of  God  on  account  of  the  passing 
over  of  the  sins  done  aforetime.  This  passing 
over  (TTct/aeo-ti^)  is  an  expression  that  obviously  could 
not  be  applied  to  the  forgiveness  of  sins  for  which 
Christ  had  made  atonement,  as  this  atonement 
has  been  generally  understood.  It  is  probably 
this  difficulty,  arising  from  the  general  view  that 
they  had  adopted,  which  has  led  the  commenta- 
tors to  unite  in  making  the  word  refer  to  the 
pre-Christian  sins  of  the  world.  We  have  seen 
into  what  a  jungle  of  contradictions  this  expla- 
nation leads.  Here  the  interpretation  that  I  am 
urging  comes  to  our  relief.  The  basis  of  this 
may  be  illustrated  by  the  passage  in  the  Epistle 


198  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

to  the  Colossians  that  has  been  already  referred 
to.  The  Colossians  were  told  that  when  "the 
bond  written  in  ordinances  that  was  against  us  " 
was  "blotted  out,"  being  "nailed  to  the  cross," 
the  "  trespasses  "  that  had  been  committed  against 
it  were  "forgiven."^  In  other  words,  the  sins 
that  had  been  committed  against  the  law  were 
suffered  to  lapse  when  the  law,  so  far  as  the 
Christian  was  concerned,  was  done  away.  This 
is  what  Paul  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  natu- 
rally speaks  of  as  *'  the  passing  over  of  the  sins 
done  aforetime,  in  the  forbearance  of  God."  No 
words  could  be  chosen  that  would  more  accu- 
rately express  the  nature  of  the  transaction  as 
I  have  endeavored  to  explain  it.  This  is  to  be 
understood,  as  the  parallelism  of  the  passage 
would  indicate,  as  being  the  same  thing  that  is 
later  in  the  sentence  spoken  of  as  the  justifying 
of  the  believer  in  Jesus.  Thus,  here  as  else- 
where, the  interpretation  of  Paul's  thought  that 
I  suggest  enables  us  to  take  his  language  in  its 
most  literal  meaning ;  and  by  following  this  lit- 
eral meaning  we  escape  the  contradictions  and 
difficulties  that  beset  every  other  form  of  expo- 
sition. 

1  Colossians  ii.  14. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  1 99 

The  only  objection  that  occurs  to  me  as  possi- 
bly to  be  urged  against  the  general  view  that  has 
been  taken  grows  out  of  the  special  fitness  of  it 
to  the  passage  in  Romans  that  we  have  been 
examining.  The  phrase  ''passing  over"  (Trapeo-tv) 
is  so  exceedingly  appropriate  to  the  allowing 
offences  to  lapse  when  the  law  against  which 
they  had  been  committed  is  done  away,  that 
one  might  wonder  how,  under  these  circum- 
stances, such  sins  could  ever  be  spoken  of,  as 
Paul  often  speaks  of  them,  as  forgiven.  Though 
the  expression  in  the  verse  under  consideration 
is,  technically  speaking,  the  most  fitting,  yet  it 
is  obvious  that  sins  that  are  passed  over  by  for- 
bearance might  easily  be  said  to  be  forgiven. 
The  passage  just  referred  to  from  the  Epistle 
to  the  Colossians,  however,  removes  all  difficulty. 
In  this  the  sins  are  said  to  be  forgiven  because 
the  law  had  been  "  blotted  out "  and  ''  taken 
away."  Whatever  we  may  think  of  this  use  of 
the  term,  we  find  it  here  so  used  ;  and  for  the 
ends  of  the  interpreter  this  is  enough. 

The  Resurrection  of  Christ. 

It  does  not  need  a  very  close  examination  of 
Paul's  teaching  to  see  that  he  took  an  entirely 


200  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

different  view  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  from 
that  which  has  been  taken  in  the  later  church. 
Modern  Christians  are  in  the  habit  of  seeing  in 
the  resurrection  of  Christ  the  great  proof  of  life 
after  death.  They  feel  that  the  importance  of 
this  occurrence  consists  in  the  fact  that  it  gave 
visible  and  tangible  proof  that  death  is  not  the 
end  of  the  life  of  the  spirit.  Certainly,  it  natu- 
rally lends  itself  to  this  use.  To  those  who  be- 
lieve in  the  continued  existence  of  the  soul  after 
death,  the  resurrection  of  Christ  furnishes  a  most 
striking  confirmation  of  this  belief.  What  con- 
cerns us  here  is  that  to  Paul  it  ordinarily  meant 
something  very  different  from  this.  Paul  was  a 
Pharisee,  and  had  believed  in  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead  long  before  he  became  a  Christian.  He 
needed  not  the  resurrection  of  Christ  to  teach 
him  this  lesson.  With  his  Gentile  converts  it 
was  different.  The  life  after  death  had  been,  in- 
deed, held  by  all  peoples  of  whom  we  have  know- 
ledge from  time  immemorial.  This  belief  did 
not,  however,  involve  that  of  the  resurrection ; 
and  even  this  had  been  fading  out  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent  among  the  later  Greeks  and  Romans. 
It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  some  among 
the  Corinthians  should  deny  that  there  is  any 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  201 

resurrection  of  the  dead.  To  these  Paul  holds 
up  the  fact  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ.  Proba- 
bly he  meant,  in  part,  to  be  understood  as  rea- 
soning from  this  fact  of  a  single  resurrection  to 
the  reality  of  a  general  resurrection.  He  says  : 
"  Now  if  Christ  is  preached  that  he  hath  been 
raised  from  the  dead,  how  say  some  among  you 
that  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead  t "  ^ 
This  is,  however,  only  a  small  part  of  his  plea. 
He  reasons  not  so  much,  as  a  modern  preacher 
would  do,  from  the  resurrection  of  Christ  as  to 
this  resurrection.  He  is  not  so  much  seeking 
a  basis  in  fact  for  the  belief  in  a  general  resur- 
rection, as  showing  the  momentous  results  that 
would  spring  from  its  denial.  This  is  evident 
from  the  fact  that  he  says  not  merely  "  if  there 
is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead,  neither  hath  Christ 
been  raised ; "  ^  but  hurries  on  to  show  what  would 
ensue  if  faith  in  the  resurrection  of  Christ  were 
given  up.  The  whole  argument  culminates  in 
the  saying,  "  If  Christ  hath  not  been  raised,  your 
faith  is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins."  ^  The  form 
of  his  reasoning  thus  truly  represents  its  sub- 
stance.    Where  the  modern  preacher  urges,  "■  If 

1  I  Corinthians  xv.  12.  2  j  Corinthians  xv.  13. 

3  I  Corinthians  xv.  17. 


202  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Christ  hath  not  been  raised,  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  in  the  continued  life  of  the  dead,"  Paul 
exclaimed,  "  For  if  the  dead  are  not  raised,  neither 
hath  Christ  been  raised."  Indeed,  his  thought 
anticipates  the  whole  attitude  of  the  modern 
world  towards  this  occurrence.  To  those  at  the 
present  day  who  do  not  believe  in  a  general  res- 
urrection, Christ  is  not  risen.  Thus,  in  an  edito- 
rial article  in  a  recent  number  of  the  '*  Andover 
Review,"  we  read  as  follows  :  *'If  one  has  over- 
come the  difficulty  of  belief  in  personal  immortal- 
ity and  holds  it  as  true  that  the  individual  sur- 
vives death,  why  should  it  be  incredible  that  Jesus 
survived  death  and  gave  some  crowning  proof  of 
the  victory  in  keeping  with  the  divine  life  which 
preceded  his  crucifixion  .?"  ^  Here  the  reasoning 
is  from  the  general  belief  to  belief  in  Christ's  res- 
urrection. The  writer  says,  however,  in  the  same 
article  :  "  Here  also  the  question  could  be  asked, 
how,  if  God  would  convince  men  of  the  reality  of 
life  beyond  death.  He  could  do  it  more  surely 
than  through  that  resurrection  which  abolished 
death  }  "  Here  the  reasoning  is  in  the  opposite 
direction  ;  as,  indeed,  we  meet  indications  of  this 
double  process  in  Paul  himself. 

^  Andover  Review,  October,  1892,  p.  399. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  203 

It  is  not  our  purpose,  however,  to  consider  the 
general  relations  in  which  the  thought  of  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  stands  to  Christian  theol- 
ogy, nor  even  to  consider  the  question  whether 
the  belief  in  this  resurrection  had  a  basis  in  fact. 
We  have  simply  to  discover  the  place  that  it  filled 
in  the  thought  of  Paul. 

As  I  have  said,  the  resurrection  of  Christ  did 
not  stand  to  Paul  himself,  in  any  degree,  as  a 
proof  of  a  general  resurrection.  He  needed  no 
such  proof.  It  was  to  him  an  occasion  of  joy 
and  triumph  ;  not  because  it  strengthened  his 
faith  in  the  future  of  himself  and  of  man  in  gen- 
eral, but  because  it  was  the  beginning  of  the 
great  consummation.  Christ  was  "  the  firstfruits 
of  them  that  are  asleep."  ^  Persons  inclosed  in 
a  beleaguered  city,  who  may  have  had  absolutely 
certain  knowledge  that  an  army  is  to  come  to 
their  relief,  may  yet  be  pardoned  if  they  have  a 
special  outburst  of  joy  when  they  first  hear  the 
distant  roar  of  the  cannon  that  tells  them  that 
their  deliverers  have  arrived.  It  was  with  such  an 
outburst  of  the  joy  of  a  faith,  the  realization  of 
which  has  actually  begun,  that  Paul  exclaimed : 

1  Corinthians  xv.  20,  23. 


204  ^-^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL, 

"  Now  hath  Christ  been  raised  from  the  dead, 
the  firstfruits  of  them  that  are  asleep."  ^ 

Further,  Paul  saw  in  Christ  the  power  by  which 
the  general  resurrection  was  to  be  accomplished. 
"  As  in  Adam  all  die,"  he  exclaimed,  *'  so  also 
in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive."  ^  We  cannot 
wonder  at  the  exuberance  of  his  joy,  as  he  saw 
the  beginning  of  the  great  event  which  was  so 
soon  to  become  completed,  and  the  presence  of 
the  power  that  was  to  bring  about  the  consum- 
mation. 

The  joy  with  which  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
was  hailed  by  Paul  as  the  forerunner  of  the 
general  resurrection  formed,  however,  only  the 
smallest  part  of  its  interest  for  him.  It  had  a 
profound  relation  to  the  atoning  work  of  Christ. 
Paul  says  of  Christ  that  he  "was  delivered  up 
for  our  trespasses,  and  was  raised  for  our  justi- 
fication." ^  Or,  as  we  could  translate  with  less 
danger  of  misconception,  he  "was  delivered  up 
on  account  of  our  trespasses,  and  was  raised  on 
account  of  our  justification."  To  the  Corinthi- 
ans he  writes :  "  If  Christ  hath  not  been  raised, 
your  faith  is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins."* 

1  I  Corinthians  xv.  20.  ^  \  Corinthians  xv.  22. 

8  Romans  iv.  25.  *  i  Corinthians  xv.  17. 


THE    GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  205 

The  relation  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  to  his 
atoning  work  is  given  by  most  commentators 
substantially  as  follows :  The  Christian  is  justi- 
fied by  the  death  of  Christ  who  bore  the  penalty 
of  his  sins  ;  but  faith  on  the  part  of  the  Christian 
is  needed  to  make  this  justification  effective,  and 
for  faith  is  needed  knowledge.  It  is  through  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  that  the  nature  of  his 
death  is  made  known.  Thus  he  was  "  raised  on 
account  of  our  justification,"  and  if  he  had  not 
been  raised,  the  Christian  would  be  yet  in  his 
sins.^  Thus  the  resurrection  is  regarded  as  merely 
declarative. 

It  seems  to  me  that  Paul  must  have  meant 
something  more  than  this,  or  something  different 
from  it.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  he  would 
have  written  to  the  Corinthians  just  what  he  did, 
if  this  had  been  what  he  meant.  He  says  to  them 
that  if  Christ  be  not  risen  their  faith  is  vain,  and 
they  are  yet  in  their  sins.  Their  faith  in  what 
would  be  vain }  Certainly,  if  Christ  was  not 
raised,  their  faith  in  his  resurrection  would  be 
vain.  Paul  must  have  meant  more  than  this. 
He  must  have  meant  that  their  faith  in  yesus 
would  be  vain  if  he  had  not  risen.     If  they  be- 

,  1  See,  for  instance,  Meyer  on  the  passages  just  quoted. 


206  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

lieved  that  Christ  had  been  raised  when  actually 
he  had  not,  Christ  could  not  have  done  some- 
thing that  they  believed  him  to  have  done  ;  and 
this  lacking  something  was  essential  to  the  work 
that  they  believed  him  to  have  accomplished. 
According  to  the  interpretation  generally  re- 
ceived, they  believed  that  Christ  died  in  order 
that  he  might  bear  the  penalty  of  the  world's 
sin  ;  and  his  resurrection  had  conveyed  to  them 
the  information  that  his  death  had  this  signifi- 
cance. If  he  had  not  been  really  raised,  it  is 
urged  they  had  no  basis  for  this  belief. 

The  words  seem  to  me  to  mean  more  than 
this.  They  seem  to  me  to  point  to  something 
essentially  connected  with  the  work  of  Christ  it- 
self. They  imply  not  merely  that  if  Christ  were 
not  raised  the  assurance  of  the  Christian's  faith 
would  be  gone,  and  that  the  matter  would  be  left 
doubtful ;  they  make  an  absolute  assertion  that 
this  faith  would  be  vain  if  Christ  had  not  been 
raised,  and  that  his  followers  would  be  yet  in  their 
sins.  It  is  an  affirmation,  not  of  the  uncertainty 
of  a  hope,  but  of  the  certainty  of  its  failure. 

A  more  serious  difficulty  with  the  interpreta- 
tion that  makes  the  resurrection,  in  Paul's  view, 
important  because  it  declares  that  Christ  in  his 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  20/ 

death  bore  the  penalty  of  the  world's  sin,  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  does  not  declare  this.  I  have 
studied  the  commentaries  in  vain  to  find  any 
hint  of  the  manner  in  which  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  declared  his  death  to  have  had  the  sub- 
stitutionary value  that  is  claimed  for  it.  With 
the  best  efforts  on  my  own  part,  I  find  it  impos- 
sible to  conceive  any  way  in  which  it  could  have 
had  this  significance.  If  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  had  any  declarative  force,  it  must  have 
declared  something  with  which  it  stood  in  the 
closest  logical  connection.  It  stands  in  no  such 
logical  relation  with  the  idea  that  in  his  death  he 
bore  the  world's  sin. 

Another  attempt  to  reconcile  the  words  of 
Paul  with  the  traditional  theory  is  made  by  Me- 
negoz,  who  is  quoted  with  approval  by  Pfleiderer,^ 
though  in  a  manner  to  leave  it  doubtful,  to  my 
own  mind  at  least,  whether  Pfleiderer  fully  ac- 
cepts the  view  or  not.  According  to  this  view, 
Christ  was  condemned  to  death  for  our  sins  and 
was  executed.  By  this  execution  he  was  set 
right  with  justice;  thus  he  could  not  remain  in 
death  ;  he  must  be  given  back  to  life ;  therefore 
hath  God  raised  him.     As  it  is  the  right  of  the 

1  Paulinismus  (second  edition),  p.  i6o. 


20 8  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

thief  condemned  to  prison  to  come  back  into 
freedom  after  suffering  his  penalty,  so  it  was  the 
right  of  Christ,  after  dying  for  the  atonement 
of  our  sins,  to  return  to  life  when  this  atone- 
ment had  been  accomplished.  This  theory  is 
interesting  as  a  protest  against  the  traditional 
view,  and  gives  a  certain  significance  to  the  fact 
of  the  resurrection.  We  see  that  if  Christ  had 
died  in  order  that  he  might  bear  the  penalty 
of  the  world's  sin,  it  is  possible  that  he  might 
have  arisen  when  this  result  had  been  achieved. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  would  have  been  no 
particular  reason  to  expect  this. 

If  Jesus  died  in  man's  stead  and  thus  satisfied 
the  law,  he  and  the  men  whose  penalty  he  had 
paid  stood  on  the  same  footing  before  the  law. 
What  further  would  have  taken  place,  I,  for  one, 
have  not  the  ingenuity  to  conjecture.  So  much 
at  least  appears  clear,  however,  namely,  that  there 
was  no  more  reason  to  expect  him  to  arise  at  once 
from  the  dead  than  to  expect  those  for  whom  he 
died  to  arise.  They  were  by  him  set  right  with 
the  law,  and  their  immediate  resurrection  was  to 
be  expected  at  least  as  truly  as  his.  Even  then, 
if  we  grant  all  that  is  urged  by  Menegoz,  it  shows 
only  that  Christ  might  have  arisen,  not  that  he 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  209 

must  have  arisen.  It  furnishes  no  explanation 
of  Paul's  words  to  the  Corinthians,  that  if  Christ 
were  not  risen  they  were  yet  in  their  sins.  It 
was  something  that  followed  the  completion  of 
the  atoning  work  of  Christ.  It  was  not,  as  Paul 
insists,  a  part  of  this  atoning  work.  In  a  word, 
the  theory  of  Menegoz  seems  to  me  an  arti- 
ficial addition  to  an  artificial  theory.  It  is  like 
an  epicycle  vainly  used  to  supplement  the  inade- 
quate cycle.  ^ 

I  thus  fail  to  find  any  method  by  which  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  may  be  made  to  appear 
to  have  any  vital  relation  to  his  atoning  work, 
as  this  work  is  commonly  understood.  We  have 
now  to  ask  whether  the  general  interpretation 
of  the  teaching  of  Paul  which  I  am  here  present- 
ing will  throw  any  better  light  upon  the  impor- 
tance which  he  attached  to  the  resurrection  of 
Christ.  In  approaching  this  theme,  we  find  our- 
selves at  a  disadvantage  from  which  we  have 
thus  far  been  free.  By  starting  from  the  most 
concrete  and  definite  statements  of  Paul,  and 
using  these  to  explain  the  more  vague  and  ab- 

1  I  am  sorry  to  have  to  refer  to  so  important  a  work  as  that 
of  Menegoz  at  second  hand.  When  I  tried  to  procure  it,  it  was 
unfortunately  out  of  print. 


210  -THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

stract,  we  have  been  able  to  reach  results  which, 
to  me  at  least,  seem  well  established,  without 
being  obliged  to  call  to  our  aid  conjecture  and 
speculation.  We  have  found  explicit  authority 
for  all  the  conclusions  which  have  been  reached. 
So  far  as  the  subject  before  us  is  concerned,  we 
have  no  words  of  Paul  or  of  his  followers  to  guide 
us.  We  know  only  that  in  the  thought  of  Paul 
the  resurrection  filled  an  important  part  in  the 
work  of  Christ,  and  was  essentially  connected 
with  his  redemptive  work. 

Let  us  first  assume,  as  the  commentators  for 
the  most  part  do,  that  the  relation  of  the  resur- 
rection to  the  death  of  Christ  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  it  declared  the  nature  and  object  of  this  ; 
and  let  us  ask,  What  was  the  revelation  which  it 
brought  to  Paul }  In  doing  this,  let  us  avoid  all 
conjecture ;  but  starting  with  what  we  know  to 
have  been  in  the  mind  of  Paul,  ask  what  effect 
the  resurrection  must  have  had  upon  his  thought. 
We  have  indeed  already  anticipated  this  inquiry.^ 
Paul,  as  we  have  seen,  persecuted  the  Christians 
because  he  conceived  that  Christ  was  by  the  law 
accursed,  and  that  his  followers  shared  his  pollu- 
tion.    When  Christ  appeared  in  the  glory  of  the 

1  See  pp.  152  ff. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  211 

Father,  Paul  could  not  help  seeing  that,  although 
accursed  before  the  law,  he  was  accepted  and 
glorified  by  God.  We  have  already  seen  how 
this  could  not  help  forcing  the  logical  mind  of 
Paul  to  leap  to  the  conclusion  that  the  condem- 
nation of  the  Christian  by  the  law  had  another 
side.  If  Jesus  were  thus  raised  and  glorified,  he 
must  be  the  Christ  of  God.  If  he  were  the  Christ, 
the  fact  that  he  was  before  the  law  accursed 
meant  that  for  the  Christian  the  reign  of  the  law 
was  over,  and  that  the  sins  committed  under  the 
law  disappeared  with  it.  Here  we  have  a  reve- 
lation that  is  logically  bound  up  with  the  events 
themselves. 

Let  us  now  take  a  step  further  and  ask  if  the 
resurrection  could  have  had,  as  to  Paul  it  seems 
to  have  had,  anything  more  than  a  declarative 
force.  It  is  at  this  point  that  we  are  reduced 
to  conjecture,  and  can  only  strive  to  make  our 
conjectures  keep  within  the  limits  of  logical  prob- 
ability. 

In  Paul's  doctrine  the  crucified  Christ  was 
under  the  curse  of  the  law.  The  fact  that  he 
bore  this  curse  would  not  have  helped  man,  so 
at  least  we  may  conceive,  unless  Christ  had  tri- 
umphed over  it.     Without  this  triumph  Christ 


212  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

and  his  followers  would  have  remained  accursed. 
The  resurrection,  however,  changed  the  curse 
into  victory.  It  was  not  merely  that  the  spirit 
of  Christ  manifested  itself  in  glory.  It  was  not 
the  spirit  of  Christ  which  was  accursed.  It  was 
the  body  which  was  defiled  and  defiling.  Unless 
this  triumphed  also,  there  would  have  been  no 
redemption.  It  was  the  resurrection  of  the  body 
that  was  thus  the  essential  thing  —  its  resurrec- 
tion in  glory.  This  was  not  merely  declarative  of 
a  triumph  ;  it  constituted  the  triumph.  Such  we 
may  at  least  conceive  to  have  been  Paul's  thought. 
We  see  how  with  this  thought  the  resurrection 
may  have  been  a  direct  and  indispensable  ele- 
ment in  the  justification,  and  how,  if  Christ  had 
not  risen,  his  followers  would  have  been  still  in 
their  sins. 

I  have  spoken  as  if  Paul's  thought  included 
the  resurrection  of  the  body  of  Christ.  We  find, 
indeed,  in  Paul's  writings  no  indication  of  the 
crude  conception  which  marks  the  story  in  the 
Gospels.  Paul's  notion  of  the  resurrection  in 
general  must  remain  somewhat  vague  to  us,  as  it 
very  possibly  was  to  him,  so  far  as  the  relations 
between  the  earthly  and  the  heavenly  body  are 
concerned.     Perhaps  this  was  to  Paul  among  the 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  213 

"  Things  which  eye  saw  not,  and  ear  heard  not, 
And  which  entered  not  into  the  heart  of  man."^ 

Two  elements  only  are  clear  :  one  is  that  of  iden- 
tity ;  the  other  is  that  of  difference.  What  was 
raised  was  in  some  sense  the  same,  and  in  some 
sense  different  from  that  which  was  sown. 
'*  Flesh  and  blood,"  he  tells  us,  "  cannot  inherit 
the  kingdom  of  God."^  Yet  there  must  have 
been  some  identity  in  which  the  earthly  and 
heavenly  states  were  united,  or  the  term  "  resur- 
rection "  would  have  no  significance.  **  So  also," 
he  tells  us,  "  is  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  It 
is  sown  in  corruption  ;  it  is  raised  in  incorrup- 
tion."  ^  The  **  it,"  vague,  yet  precise,  marks  the 
element  of  identity,  though  it  throws  no  light 
upon  the  manner  in  which  the  identity  is  pre- 
served. Thus  in  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  that 
which  was  crucified  and  defiled  was  in  some 
sense  raised  and  glorified.  Thus  Christ  endured 
the  curse  of  the  law  and  triumphed  over  it.  He 
came  forth  as  a  conqueror  ;  "  and  opened  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers,"  to  the  Gen- 
tile no  less  than  to  the  Jew. 

There  is  one  other  passage  in  reference  to  the 

1  I  Corinthians  ii.  9.  2  j  Corinthians  xv.  50. 

3  I  Corinthians  xv.  42. 


214  ^-^-^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

resurrection  of  Christ  which  should  be  consid- 
ered here.  It  is  found  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans.  This  passage,  in  the  Revised  Version, 
reads :  "  Who  was  declared  to  be  the  Son  of 
God,  with  power,  according  to  the  spirit  of  holi- 
ness, by  the  resurrection  of  the  dead."  ^  For  the 
word  "  declared,"  which  is  retained  from  the  Au- 
thorized Version,  there  is  a  substitute  suggested 
in  a  note,  namely,  the  word  "  determined."  Un- 
less the  word  *'  declared  "  is  used  in  an  un-Eng- 
lish sense,^  it  certainly  does  not  represent  the 
meaning  of  the  original.  This  use  of  the  unsuit- 
able or  ambiguous  word  "declared  "  may  perhaps 
illustrate  the  difficulty  which  is  found  in'  recon- 
ciling this  passage  with  the  generally  received 
idea  of  Paul's  teaching.  In  the  passages  which 
we  have  already  considered,  the  resurrection  has 
been  by  most  treated  as  if  it  were  merely  declar- 
ative ;  and  in  the  one  before  us  the  word  "  de- 
clared "  stands  in  the  translation  itself  in  spite 
of  the  unquestionable  meaning  of  the  Greek. 
This,  perhaps,  may  be  regarded  as  a  confession 
of  the  weakness  of  the  prevailing  interpretation 
of  Paul's  teaching. 

1  Romans  i.  4. 

2  That  is,  in  the  sense  of  the  French  nommer- 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  21 5 

The  passage  is,  indeed,  looked  at  superficially, 
a  singular  one.  In  the  third  verse  Christ  is  dis- 
tinctly spoken  of  as  "  the  Son  of  God,"  and  yet 
in  the  fourth  verse,  in  the  course  of  the  same 
sentence,  he  is  said  to  be  "  determined  to  be  the 
Son  of  God  by  the  resurrection  of  the  dead." 
The  question  naturally  presses.  How  could  he 
be  determined  to  be  that  which  he  already  was  ? 
Pfleiderer,  in  the  first  edition  of  his  *'  Paulinis- 
mUs,"  emphasizes  this  difficulty,  and  thinks  that 
he  finds  a  contradiction  in  the  thought  of  Paul, 
who  had  not  fully  wrought  out  in  his  mind  the 
different  elements  which  entered  into  his  idea 
of  the  nature  of  Jesus.  He  says  :  "  The  histor- 
ical and  the  ideal  elements  are  joined,  indeed, 
for  the  first  time  in  the  Christology  of  Paul,  but 
as  yet  so  little  wrought  out  that  their  want  of 
cohesion  is  everywhere  apparent."  ^  In  the  later 
edition  of  the  same  work  the  passage  is  passed 
over  more  lightly.  In  the  earlier  edition  of 
Meyer's  Commentary,  the  declarative  interpre- 
tation has  some  place.  In  the  later  edition  the 
term  "instituted"  is  used.^     No  further  expla- 

1  English  translation,  i.  159.     In  this  discussion  Pfleiderer  in- 
sists upon  the  proper  meaning  of  the  word. 

2  In  the  English  translation. 


2l6  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

nation  of  the  passage  is  suggested  by  Meyer. 
Whether  the  idea  is,  or  is  not,  that  of  a  formal 
inauguration,  so  to  speak,  we  are  not  told.  Fur- 
ther, it  is  not  clear  how,  if  Christ  had  been  from 
eternity  the  Son  of  God  in  the  glory  of  the  Father, 
the  resurrection,  which  was  simply  a  return  to 
his  original  place,  could  be  regarded  as  an  insti- 
tution or  an  inauguration,  still  less  as  an  abso- 
lute constitution.  Clearly  the  resurrection  filled 
a  place  in  the  thought  of  Paul  which  it  does  not 
fill  in  the  thought  of  his  later  interpreters.  This 
later  thought  can  see  in  it  nothing  more  than 
a  declaration  or  a  manifestation,  with  whatever 
phrases  this  thought  may  be  beclouded. 

The  interpretation  which  we  have  been  follow- 
ing shows  at  least,  as  other  interpretations  do 
not,  what  profound  relation  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  may  have  had  to  his  redemptive  work.  If 
we  assume  our  conjectural  explanation  of  the 
place  which,  according  to  the  idea  of  Paul,  the 
resurrection  filled  in  the  general  scheme  of  re- 
demption ;  and  if  we  further  assume  that  the 
words  '*  the  Son  of  God  "  here  stand  in  a  certain 
more  or  less  technical  sense  for  the  Messiah,  the 
passage  has  an  easy  and  natural  meaning.  Christ 
is  first  introduced  as  the  Son  of  God  ;  he  is  then 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  217 

said  to  have  been  born  of  the  seed  of  David  ac- 
cording to  the  flesh, — these  last  words  marking 
the  antithesis  between  his  earthly  birth  and  his 
previously  recognized  sonship  to  God.  Then  he 
is  said  to  have  been  determined  to  be  the  Son  of 
God  with  power  by  the  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
If  our  conjecture  is  correct,  it  was  by  the  resurrec- 
tion that,  in  the  thought  of  Paul,  Christ  became 
indeed  the  Messiah.  In  it  the  work  of  atone- 
ment and  of  justification  was  accomplished.  By 
it  the  law  was  annulled  ;  and  thus  through  it  the 
remission  of  sins  was  accomplished,  and  there 
was  open  to  the  Christian  the  life  of  faith  and  of 
liberty  and  of  sonship  to  God. 

Other  New  Testament  Writings. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  glance  at  the  epistles 
that  were  written  by,  or  that  bear  the  names  of, 
other  apostles,  and  notice  the  relation  in  which 
these  stand  to  the  Pauline  ideas. 

Wonder  has  often  been  expressed  at  the  fact 
that  the  epistle  that  bears  the  name  of  James 
makes  no  reference  to  the  atoning  death  of 
Christ.  I  have  no  need  to  enter  into  the  discus- 
sion of  the  authorship  of  this  epistle.  Weiz- 
sacker,  who  denies  that  it  is  by  James,  affirms 


2l8  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

it  to  be  of  Jewish-Christian  origin.^  It  is  then, 
we  may  assume,  written  either  by  James  or  by  a 
follower  of  his.  This  being  so,  the  omission  of 
any  reference  to  the  atoning  death  of  Christ  is 
precisely  what  we  should  expect,  if  the  view  of 
Paul's  teaching  that  I  have  been  urging  be  cor- 
rect. James,  as  tradition  tells  us,  remained  loyal 
to  the  Jewish  law,  and  frequented  diligently  the 
temple.  The  words  of  the  epistle  that  bears  his 
name  are  in  keeping  with  this.  Apparently  in 
opposition  to  the  exultant  claim  of  Paul  and  his 
followers  that  they  had  found  liberty  by  the  abo- 
lition of  the  law,  the  writer  of  this  epistle  speaks 
of  the  law  as  a  "  law  of  liberty."  He  speaks  of 
''looking  into  the  perfect  law,  the  law  of  lib- 
erty." 2  The  reference  of  this  passage  to  the 
Jewish  law  appears  to  me  to  be  the  only  inter- 
pretation consistent  with  the  generally  accepted 
Jewish-Christian  origin  of  this  epistle.  It  is  as 
if,  in  opposition  to  the  Anarchists  who  seek  for 
liberty  by  the  destruction  of  the  law,  we  should 
to-day  claim  to  find  liberty  in  and  through  the 
law.  If  we  understand  the  expression  to  refer 
not  to  the  Jewish  law,  but  to  the  liberty  that 
is  in  Christ,  the  presence  of  this  Pauline  catch- 

1  Das  ApostoUsche  Zeitalter^  p.  365.  2  James  i.  25. 


THE  GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  219 

word  must  show  either  that  the  epistle  was  not 
written  by  James  or  by  any  other  Jewish  Chris- 
tian ;  or  else  that  if  James  wrote  it,  he  had  be- 
come converted  to  the  Pauline  doctrine,  which 
would  be  contradictory  to  a  recognized  tradition. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  teaching  of  Paul  was  that 
the  remission  of  sins  was  the  secondary,  not  the 
primary,  result  of  the  crucifixion  of  Christ.  The 
primary  result  of  this  was  the  abolition  of  the 
law,  so  far  as  the  Christian  was  concerned.  The 
law  having  been  abolished,  the  offences  against 
the  law  were  passed  over,  for  the  Christian  had 
become  free  from  its  condemnation.  Thus,  to 
those  who  remained  loyal  to  the  law,  the  death 
of  Christ  had  not  the  atoning  efficacy  which  it 
had  for  Paul  and  his  followers. 

The  Jewish  Christian  might  believe  that  he 
was  forgiven  and  saved  through  his  faith  in 
Christ.  This  result  was,  however,  accomplished  ; 
because  by  faith  in  Christ  he  had  become  a 
member  of  the  Messianic  kingdom,  and  because, 
as  the  epistle  before  us  insists,  this  faith  took 
form  in  righteous  deeds.  For  him,  however, 
there  could  be  no  atoning  death.  Thus  the  si- 
lence of  James,  or  of  whatever  Jewish  Christian 
was  the  author  of  this  epistle,  is  precisely  what 
we  should  expect. 


220  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Weizsacker,  indeed,  maintains  that  the  doc- 
trine of  the  remission  of  sins  by  the  death  of 
Christ  was  part  of  the  primitive  belief  of  the 
Christian  church.^  For  this  view  he  appeals  to  the 
words  of  Paul :  "  For  I  delivered  unto  you  first 
of  all  that  which  also  I  received,  how  that  Christ 
died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  scripture."  ^ 
He  assumes  that  when  Paul  says  he  "  received  " 
this,  his  meaning  was  that  he  received  it  from 
the  apostolic  church.  Meyer  and  Schmiedel  take 
also  a  similar  view  of  the  passage.  This  view, 
which  makes  Paul  refer  his  teaching  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  apostolic  church,  appears  to  me  to 
contradict  his  ordinary  manner  of  speech.  Of 
his  gospel,  he  says  :  "  For  I  make  known  to 
you,  brethren,  as  touching  the  gospel  which  was 
preached  by  me,  that  it  is  not  after  man.  For 
neither  did  I  receive  it  from  man,  nor  was  I 
taught  it,  but  it  came  to  me  through  revelation 
of  Jesus  Christ.  .  .  .  But  when  it  was  the  good 
pleasure  of  God,  who  separated  me,  even  from 
my  mother's  womb,  and  called  me  through  his 
grace,  to  reveal  his  Son  in  me,  that  I  might 
preach  him  among  the  Gentiles ;  immediately  I 

1  Das  Apostolische   Zeitalter  (second  edition),  p.  io8. 

2  I  Corinthians  xv.  3. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  221 

conferred  not  with  flesh  and  blood  :  neither  went 
I  up  to  Jerusalem  to  them  which  were  apostles 
before  me  :  but  I  went  away  into  Arabia ;  and 
again  I  returned  unto  Damascus."  ^  Paul  goes 
on  to  tell  of  a  visit  that  he  made  to  Jerusalem 
after  three  years,  and  how  little  he  there  saw  of 
the  apostles.  When  Paul  thus  disclaims  all  hu- 
man authority  for  his  teaching,  there  seems  an 
antecedent  improbability  that  he  should  else- 
where say  that  he  had  received  from  man  so 
important  an  element  of  his  teaching  as  the 
doctrine  of  the  remission  of  sins.  At  least,  we 
should  expect  that  if  he  so  far  deviated  from  his 
custom  as  to  state  this,  he  would  feel  the  need 
of  making  perfectly  clear  what  he  meant.  In  a 
matter  of  interpretation,  however,  we  have  to 
ask  primarily,  not  what  we  should  expect,  but 
what  the  writer  actually  said. 

In  regard  to  the  passage  before  us  (i  Corin- 
thians XV.  3)  Weizsacker  and  Schmiedel  content 
themselves  with  saying  that  Paul  must  have 
meant  that  he  received  from  the  earlier  disci- 
ples the  doctrine  that  Christ  died  for  the  remis- 
sion of  sins,  because  he  does  not  say  that  he  re- 
ceived it  from  the  Lord.     Meyer  adds  two  other 

1  Galatians  i.  11-17. 


222  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

reasons.  One  of  these  he  derives  from  the  fact 
that  the  passage  goes  on  to  speak  of  merely  his- 
torical incidents  for  which  no  revelation  would 
be  needed.  We  must,  however,  notice  that  only 
a  little  earlier  in  the  same  epistle  Paul  had  spoken 
of  his  knowledge  of  the  last  supper  as  having 
been  given  him  by  revelation.  He  wrote  :  "  For 
I  received  of  the  Lord  that  which  also  I  delivered 
unto  you,  how  that  the  Lord  Jesus  in  the  night 
in  which  he  was  betrayed  took  bread ; "  ^  and 
he  proceeds  to  relate  the  story  of  the  touching 
transaction.  Now  if  Paul,  in  the  eleventh  chap- 
ter, speaks  of  having  ''received"  his  knowledge 
of  this  historical  incident  from  the  Lord,  it  is  idle 
to  insist  that  what,  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of 
the  same  epistle,  he  speaks  of  having  "  received  " 
could  not  have  been  from  the  Lord  because  of 
the  historic  facts  involved. 

Meyer  further  argues  that  the  "  received " 
must  refer  to  man,  because  it  is  correlated  with 
"  deliver  "  :  "  For  I  delivered  unto  you  first  of 
all  that  which  also  I  received."  The  argument 
would  seem  to  be,  that  since  the  doctrine  was 
delivered  to  the  Corinthians  by  a  man, —  namely, 
Paul,  —  this  man  must  also  have  received  it  from 

1  I  Corinthians  xi.  23  ff. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  223 

men.  We  must  notice,  however,  that  in  the  pas- 
sage just  quoted  from  the  eleventh  chapter  in 
regard  to  the  Lord's  Supper,  there  is  precisely 
the  same  correlation  of  the  same  words  :  "  For  I 
received  of  the  Lord  that  which  also  I  delivered 
unto  you."  The  words  in  the  original  are  the 
same  in  both  cases,  — TrapeX.a/Sov  and  TrapiSwKa. 

My  criticism  of  Meyer's  reasoning  might  seem 
at  first  sight  not  to  bear  with  its  full  force 
against  him.  He  insists  that  the  preposition 
used  by  Paul  in  the  statement  in  the  fifteenth 
chapter  (aTro)  might  signify  an  indirect  commu- 
nication from  the  Lord,  and  not  a  direct  revela- 
tion. This,  however,  does  not  really  affect  my 
argument,  as,  whether  the  communication  was 
direct  or  indirect,  it  was  still  from  the  Lord,  and 
not  by  tradition  from  the  brethren.  It  should 
be  said,  also,  that  his  American  editor,  Dr.  Cham- 
bers, makes  light  of  Meyer's  suggestions  as  to 
the  preposition  aTro.  Thus  what  I  have  urged 
against  Meyer's  argument  would  hold  good  with- 
out qualification  to  all  who  do  not  accept  his 
somewhat  strained  construction  of  the  preposi- 
tion in  the  earlier  passage.  Meyer's  interpreta- 
tion of  both  these  passages  would  seem  to  show 
a  desire  to  avoid  the  idea  that  Paul  received  a 


224  ^^^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

knowledge  of  generally  known  historic  facts  by 
revelation  from  the  Lord,  which  desire  led  him 
to  force  unduly  (according  to  Dr.  Chambers)  the 
meaning  of  the  preposition  used  by  Paul  in  the 
eleventh  chapter,  and  to  fail  to  recognize  the  im- 
portance of  this  passage  in  the  examination  of 
the  corresponding  expression  in  the  fifteenth 
chapter. 

There  remains  the  argument  used  by  all  three 
of  the  authorities  cited,  namely,  that  "  received  " 
cannot  refer  to  the  Lord,  because  the  Lord  is 
not  mentioned.  In  regard  to  this,  the  common- 
sense  view  would  seem  to  be,  that  after  having 
once  spoken  of  his  knowledge  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
as  having  been  received  by  revelation,  Paul  did 
not  think  it  necessary  to  complete  the  formula 
every  time  it  was  used,  but  took  it  for  granted 
that  it  would  be  completed  in  the  minds  of  his 
readers  ;  and  doubtless  the  simple-minded  Co- 
rinthians did  so  understand  the  matter.  Cer- 
tainly, the  commentators  before  Meyer  did  not 
doubt  that  Paul  meant  that  he  "  received  "  his 
knowledge  from  the  Lord.^ 

It  appears  to  me  that  the  critics  confound  an 
assumption   that   would   be   natural  in   general 

1  Cf.  Meyer,  a.  1. 


THE  GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  225 

with  a  presumption  that  is  natural  in  a  special 
case.  If,  for  instance,  a  man  should  say  to  us 
that  he  had  heard  of  such  or  such  an  occurrence 
in  some  distant  spot,  we  should  assume  that  he 
had  gathered  it  from  public  prints  or  common 
rumor.  But  suppose  we  know  that  the  person 
who  tells  the  story  has  a  correspondent  in  the 
place  referred  to,  and  that  he  has  been  in  the 
habit  of  quoting  from  this  friend's  letters,  say- 
ing:  "  I  have  heard  this  or  that  from  my  friend 
at,"  wherever  the  scene  of  the  event  might  be. 
In  this  case,  when  he  said,  "  I  have  heard  that 
such  a  thing  has  taken  place,"  we  should  assume 
that  he  had  received  it  from  private  correspon- 
dence unless  he  said  otherwise.  So  at  least  it 
seems  to  me.  At  any  rate,  the  probability 
against  this  is  not  strong  enough  to  be  the  basis 
of  an  argument. 

At  the  same  time,  if  any  insist  that  in  the  pas- 
sage under  consideration  Paul  must  have  meant 
that  he  "  received "  the  information  from  the 
earlier  disciples,  I  would  suggest  that,  as  he  is 
going  on  to  speak  of  external  facts  of  Christ's 
history,  all  leading  up  to  the  various  reappear- 
ances after  his  resurrection,  it  is  possible  that, 
naming  his  death,  he  added  the  explanatory  "  for 


226  THE    GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

our  sins  "  out  of  his  own  accustomed  manner  of 
speech.  My  own  view,  however,  is  that  the  cor- 
respondence between  this  passage  and  that  in 
the  eleventh  chapter  of  the  same  epistle  (23-25), 
to  which  reference  has  been  made,  is  so  great 
that  it  is  a  rationalistic  forcing  of  it  to  explain 
it  differently. 

The  "  Epistle  of  James  "  gives  such  an  inter- 
esting insight  into  the  Christianity  of  that  part 
of  the  early  church  which  did  not  accept  Paul's 
teaching,  that  it  has  seemed  to  me  worth  while 
to  dwell  a  little  upon  an  interpretation  of  Paul's 
words  that,  as  it  seems  to  me,  confuses  the  whole 
picture  of  the  primitive  church.  I  conceive  that 
the  "  Epistle  of  James "  does  not  refer  to  the 
atoning  death  of  Christ,  simply  because  for  James 
and  his  followers  there  was  no  such  atoning 
death ;  and  that  Paul  did  not  receive  his  doctrine 
of  the  remission  of  sins  by  the  death  of  Christ 
from  the  apostles  into  whose  fellowship  he  en- 
tered, because  till  he  taught  it  that  doctrine  was 
not  known. 

In  regard  to  Paul's  claim  that  his  doctrine  of 
the  remission  of  sins  by  the  death  of  Christ  was 
received  from  the  Lord,  we  may  take  either  of 
two  views.     We  may  assume  that  when  Christ 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  22/ 

appeared  to  Paul,  or  when  Paul  believed  that 
Christ  appeared  to  him,  the  vision  imparted  to 
him  the  doctrine  which  he  afterward  preached  ; 
or,  without  judging  anything  in  regard  to  the 
nature  of  this  vision,  we  may  assume  that  when 
Paul  saw,  or  believed  that  he  saw,  the  crucified 
one  appearing  in  the  divine  glory,  the  whole  logi- 
cal result  of  the  situation  flashed  at  once  through 
his  mind.  If  the  crucified  one  was  glorified, 
then  he  had  triumphed  over  the  curse  which  the 
law  had  uttered.  Christ  and  his  church  then 
stood  outside  of  the  law  and  were  free  from  it ; 
and  thus  the  old  scores  which  had  been  accumu- 
lating under  the  law  were  wiped  out.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  this  insight  came  in  a  moment,  and 
was  thus  so  bound  up  with  the  vision  that  it  be- 
came a  part  of  it  to  his  memory,  and  seemed  to 
him  like  a  sudden  revelation.  Of  course,  this 
explanation  would  not  apply  with  equal  force  to 
those  matters  of  historical  detail  that  Paul 
claimed  to  have  received  by  revelation.  I  recog- 
nize and  feel  all  the  difficulties  involved  in  re- 
gard to  these.  It  is  a  difficulty,  however,  that 
we  have  to  face  in  the  one  case  (i  Corinthians 
xi.  23)  ;  there  is,  therefore,  no  reason  why  we 
should  not  face  it  in  the  other. 


228  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Turning  now  to  the  "  First  Epistle  of  Peter," 
we  find  language  which  is  precisely  similar  to 
that  used  by  Paul.  Thus  we  read  :  "  Knowing 
that  ye  were  redeemed,  not  with  corruptible 
things,  with  silver  or  gold,  from  your  vain  man- 
ner of  life  handed  down  from  your  fathers ;  but 
with  precious  blood,  as  of  a  lamb  without  blem- 
ish and  without  spot,  even  the  blood  of  Christ."  ^ 
The  epistle  from  which  this  extract  is  taken  is 
addressed  "  to  the  elect  who  are  of  the  sojourn- 
ers of  the  dispersion."  2  The  "vain  manner  of 
life  handed  down  from  your  fathers "  can  be 
nothing  other  than  the  life  according  to  the  Mo- 
saic law,  with  the  traditions  that  had  grown  up 
about  it.  In  saying  to  his  readers  that  they 
were  freed  by  the  blood  of  Christ  from  their  vain 
manner  of  life  handed  down  from  the  fathers, 
the  writer  meant  just  what  the  writer  to  the 
Hebrews  meant  when  he  spoke  of  the  blood  of 
Christ  as  cleansing  the  consciences  of  his  follow- 
ers from  dead  works.^  After  this  Pauline  utter- 
ance, we  can  have  no  hesitation  in  explaining  in 
the  Pauline  sense  the  passage  in  the  second  chap- 
ter :  "Who  his  own  self  bare  our  sins  in  his 
body  upon  the  tree."^ 

1  I  Peter  i.  i8  f.  "^  \  Peter  i.  i. 

3  Hebrews  ix.  14.  ^  i  Peter  ii.  24. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  229 

The  writer  of  the  epistle  was  evidently  thor- 
oughly converted  to  the  Pauline  doctrine.  If 
the  author  were  Peter  himself,  this  Paulinism 
need  not  surprise  us.  That  Peter  had  accepted 
Paul's  doctrine  is  evident  from  Paul's  language 
in  his  letter  to  the  Galatians,  though  it  would 
also  appear  that  he  was  at  that  time  a  timid  fol- 
lower. Paul  writes  of  him  :  "  For  before  that 
certain  came  from  James,  he  did  eat  with  the 
Gentiles  :  but  when  they  came,  he  drew  back 
and  separated  himself,  fearing  them  that  were  of 
the  circumcision.  And  the  rest  of  the  Jews  dis- 
sembled likewise  with  him  ;  insomuch  that  even 
Barnabas  was  carried  away  with  their  dissimula- 
tion."^ If  Peter  had  not  believed  it  right  to  eat 
with  the  Gentiles,  he  would  not  have  done  so. 
When  certain  from  James  came  there  was  a 
stampede  among  the  disciples  of  Paul,  including 
even  so  true  a  follower  as  Barnabas,  not  because 
their  views  had  changed,  but  because  they  wished 
to  stand  well  with  the  delegates  from  Jerusalem. 
Indeed,  so  far  as  the  freer  life  was  concerned, 
the  teaching  of  Paul  was  ordinarily  not,  "  You 
must  not,"  but  "You  need  not."  Paul  says  of 
himself:  "To  the  Jews  I  became  as  a  Jew." 2 

1  Galatians  ii.  12  f.  ^  \  Corinthians  ix.  20. 


230  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

Thus  the  temporary  defection  of  Peter  indicates 
no  permanent  opposition.  It  would  seem  to 
have  been  the  result  of  a  momentary  impulse  of 
cowardice,  like  that  which  led  him  to  deny  his 
Master,  and  to  have  had  no  greater  significance. 

If  the  "First  Epistle  of  Peter"  was  not  by 
the  apostle  but  by  a  later  hand,  written  after 
the  Pauline  doctrine  had  obtained  wide  recogni- 
tion, it  is  not  strange  that  it  should  utter  this 
doctrine. 

We  cannot  conclude  this  part  of  our  discus- 
sion without  noticing  the  phraseology  that,  in 
the  account  of  the  institution  of  the  last  supper 
as  given  in  the  Gospel  according  to  Matthew, 
Jesus  is  represented  as  using.  Jesus,  it  is  there 
said,  ''took  a  cup  and  gave  thanks,  and  gave 
to  them,  saying,  Drink  ye  all  of  it  ;  for  this 
is  my  blood  of  the  covenant,  which  is  shed  for 
many  unto  remission  of  sins."  ^  The  closing 
words  of  this  saying  would  appear  to  be  wholly 
opposed  to  the  view  that  I  have  been  urging.  I 
have  assumed,  as  a  result  of  the  previous  argu- 
ment, that  the  idea  of  remission  of  sins  by  the 
blood  of  Christ  was  not  held  before,  or  outside 
of,  the  Pauline  teaching.      If  Jesus  before  his 

1  Matthew  xxvi.  27,  28. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  23 1 

death  said  that  his  blood  was  shed  for  the  remis- 
sion of  sins,  It  would  imply  that  this  was  one  of 
the  earliest  and  most  generally  accepted  doc- 
trines of  the  apostolic  church.  It  is  to  be  no- 
ticed, however,  that  this  phrase  occurs  in  no 
other  account  of  the  transaction.  This  suggests 
the  idea  that  it  was  an  expression  that  naturally 
crept  into  the  version  of  the  story,  when  the 
thought  of  the  blood  of  Christ  had  become  com- 
pletely united  with  the  thought  of  the  remission 
of  sins,  which  was  believed  to  be  accomplished 
by  it.  I  dislike  to  adopt  the  method  that  I  am 
in  the  habit  of  calling  the  exegesis  ignavice^  in 
order  to  get  a  troublesome  passage  out  of  the 
way.  I  therefore  gladly  quote  the  decision  of 
Meyer,  which  is  based  wholly  on  general  princi- 
ples, as  he  held  no  view  of  the  matter  that  could 
affect  his  judgment.  He  says:  "It  is  to  be 
observed,  further,  that  the  genuineness  of  the 
words  €t?  acf>earLv  dfiapTLiov  is  put  bcyond  all  suspi- 
cion by  the  unexceptionable  evidence  in  their 
favor  (in  opposition  to  David  Schultz),  although, 
from  their  being  omitted  in  every  other  record 
of  the  institution  of  the  supper,  they  should  not 
be  regarded  as  having  been  originally  spoken 
by  Christ,  but  as  an  explanatory  addition,  intro- 


232  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

duced  into  the  tradition  and  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Christ." 

No  book  of  the  New  Testament  uses  more 
intense  sacrificial  language  in  regard  to  the 
death  of  Christ  than  The  Revelation  of  Saint 
John.  We  read  of  those  "  who  have  washed  their 
robes,  and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb."  ^  Christ  is  spoken  of  as  the  '*  Lamb 
that  was  slain  ;  "  ^  £ven  as  "  the  Lamb  that  hath 
been  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world."  ^ 
Nothing  but  the  picturesque  intensity  of  these 
expressions  distinguishes  them  from  phrases  that 
are  familiar  in  the  Pauline  literature.  If,  indeed, 
the  assumption  of  Baur  were  to  be  accepted,  and 
we  were  to  consider  the  Apocalypse  as  an  anti- 
Pauline  document,  then  the  use  of  such  forms 
of  speech  would  be  of  great  importance,  so  far 
as  the  views  that  I  am  urging  are  concerned.  I 
have  maintained  that  the  sacrificial  terms  used 
in  regard  to  the  death  of  Christ  received  their 
significance  from  the  fact  that  Jesus,  by  the 
pollution  of  his  crucifixion,  made  his  followers 
outcast  from  the  Jewish  sanctities,  and  thus  free 
of  any  allegiance  to  them  ;  and  that  with  the 

1  Revelation  vii.  14.  ^  Lbid.  v.  12,  et  passim. 

3  Ibid.  xiii.  8. 


THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL.  233 

law  disappeared  the  condemnation  of  the  sins 
that  had  been  committed  against  it.  I  have  fur- 
ther assumed  that  outside  of  the  Pauline  Chris- 
tianity such  sacrificial  language  would  have 
neither  significance  nor  use.  If  The  Revela- 
tion is  a  thoroughly  anti-Pauline  work,  this  lat- 
ter part  of  my  theory  would  have  to  be  given 
up.  The  former  part  of  it  fits  so  perfectly  the 
language  of  Paul  and  his  school  that,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  it  could  not  be  disturbed.  Baur's  view 
finds,  however,  little  recognition  at  present. 

Weizsacker  presents  a  view  intermediate  be- 
tween that  of  Baur  and  the  one  more  generally 
held  at  present.  He  admits  that  the  book  does 
not  represent  the  narrowness  of  the  early  Jew- 
ish Christians.  It  does  not  demand  obedience 
to  the  law.  It  does  not  insist  upon  circumci- 
sion. He  insists,  however,  that  the  writer  has 
reached  this  result  in  his  own  way,  and  not  by 
that  of  Paul.  He  claims  that  there  is  in  the 
book  no  trace  of  Paul's  thought.^ 

The  idea  urged  by  Weizsacker,  that  the  same 
result  was  reached  by  two  different  processes, 
appears  to  me  not  to  conform  to  the  probabili- 
ties of  history.     The  law  of  parsimony  may  be 

1  Weizsacker,  Das  Apostolische  Zeitalter  (second  edition),  p.  507. 


234  ^-^^   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

used  in  reference  to  historical  movements  as 
well  as  to  the  processes  of  nature.  At  least  it 
appears  to  me  that  it  would  apply  to  a  case  like 
that  before  us.  There  would  seem  but  two  ways 
in  which  freedom  from  the  law  could  be  reached  : 
one  is  the  strictly  legal  method  followed  by 
Paul ;  the  other  is  the  more  or  less  gradual  dis- 
carding of  what  has  come  to  appear  superfluous. 
This  latter  naturally  requires  time,  and  would 
be  delayed  by  the  partisan  spirit  which  the 
course  of  Paul  roused  in  the  early  Jewish  Chris- 
tian. Such  considerations,  however,  I  admit  are 
of  little  value,  especially  in  a  case  like  the  pres- 
ent, where  we  have  the  facts  before  us.  The 
question  is,  then,  whether  the  fundamental 
thought  of  the  Apocalypse  is,  or  is  not,  in  har- 
mony with  that  of  Paul. 

We  notice,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  whole 
framework  of  the  book,  the  forms  of  the  thought, 
and  the  method  of  presentation,  are  wholly  un- 
like anything  in  the  Pauline  literature.  It  is 
evidently  written  by  a  patriotic  Jew.  Jerusalem 
is  still  to  the  author  the  type  of  the  heavenly 
city,  even  though  the  earthly  Jerusalem  be  ac- 
cursed.^    So   marked   is   this   Jewish   character 

1  Revelation  xi.  8. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL.  235 

that  it  lends  a  certain  antecedent  probability 
to  the  theory  of  Vischer,  that  the  basis  of  the 
work  is  a  Jewish  apocalyptic  writing  which  has 
been  adapted  more  or  less  rudely  to  Christian 
use.  The  very  preponderance  of  this  Jewish 
element  makes  all  the  more  marked  the  freedom 
of  the  book  from  any  Judaizing  tendency.  The 
form,  then,  is  even  less  Pauline  than  that  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 

When  we  look  at  the  substance  of  the  thought 
the  result  is  different.  We  find  no  Pauline 
phraseology,  but  we  do  find  the  Pauline  idea. 
While  there  is  nothing  about  "  salvation  by 
faith,"  there  is  recognized  the  fact  that  the 
robes  of  the  saints  have  been  washed  and  made 
white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb.  The  saints 
have  been  accepted  through  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ.  How  could  the  death  of  Christ  have 
been  made  available  to  them .?  By  no  conceiva- 
ble way  except  by  faith.  The  Pauline  word  is 
not  there,  but  the  Pauline  thought  is  implied. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  book  lays  great  stress 
upon  righteousness.  Not  by  faith  but  by  works 
are  men  to  be  saved.  This,  however,  can  stand 
in  no  contradiction  with  the  idea  of  salvation  by 
the  blood  of  Christ,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is 


236  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

SO  prominent  in  the  book.  Here,  also,  the  differ- 
ence from  the  Pauline  manner  of  speech  is  one 
of  emphasis.  Paul  teaches  salvation  by  faith  ; 
he  teaches  freedom  from  the  law  ;  at  the  same 
time  he  urges  that  "  if  any  man  hath  not  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,  he  is  none  of  his."  ^  If  the 
writer  of  The  Revelation  cries,  "  Without  are 
the  dogs,  and  the  sorcerers,  and  the  fornicators, 
and  the  murderers,  and  the  idolaters,  and  every 
one  that  loveth  and  maketh  a  lie  : "  ^  Paul  ex- 
claimed, "  Know  ye  not  that  the  unrighteous 
shall  not  enter  the  kingdom  of  God."^  If  we 
thus  find  the  Pauline  thought,  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  it  was  reached  by  the  Pauline  way. 
Freedom  from  the  law  and  forgiveness  were, 
according  to.  The  Revelation,  as  according  to 
Paul,  reached  through  the  death  of  Christ. 
Christ  here,  as  with  Paul,  was  set  forth  to  be 
a  propitiation  for  sins.  Paul  gives  a  distinct 
and  logical  argument  to  prove  that  the  death 
of  Christ  must  have  produced  this  effect.  He 
shows  us  precisely  in  what  manner  the  cruci- 
fixion produced  this  effect.  The  writer  of  the 
Apocalypse   assumes  that   the  death  of  Christ 

1  Romans  viii.  9.  2  Revelation  xxii.  15. 

8  I  Corinthians  vi.  9. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL,  237 

had  this  propitiatory  effect,  but  he  gives  no  hint 
as  to  how  the  death  of  Christ  operated  to  this 
end.  The  signification  attached  to  sacrifices  in 
the  ancient  world  shows  that  this  sacrificial  lan- 
guage as  applied  to  the  death  of  Christ  cannot 
mean  that  he  bore  vicariously  the  penalty  of 
men's  sins.  The  sacrificial  language  would  sug- 
gest no  such  idea.  There  seems,  then,  no  reason 
to  consider  the  relation  of  the  believer  to  Christ 
as  it  is  presented  in  the  Apocalypse  to  be  funda- 
mentally different  from  that  which  is  presented 
by  Paul. 

Weizsacker  makes  the  writer  of  The  Revela- 
tion give  a  somewhat  grudging  welcome  to  the 
uncircumcised  Christian.  Where  it  is  said,  "  Af- 
ter these  things  I  saw,  and  behold,  a  great  multi- 
tude, which  no  man  could  number,  out  of  every 
nation,  and  of  all  tribes  and  peoples  and  tongues, 
standing  before  the  throne  and  before  the  Lamb, 
arrayed  in  white  robes,  and  palms  in  their 
hands  ;  "  and  the  explanation  is  given,  "  These  are 
they  which  come  out  of  the  great  tribulation, 
and  they  washed  their  robes,  and  made  them 
white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb."^  Weizsacker 
intimates  that  these  heathen  confessors  are  ac- 

1  Revelation  vii.  9  and  14. 


238  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

cepted  because,  through  the  great  tribulation, 
they  have  obtained  a  share  in  the  martyrdom  of 
the  Lamb.^  This  idea  is  read  into  the  passage 
and  not  gathered  from  it.  The  reasoning  might 
as  well  have  been  to  the  effect  that  even  these 
martyrs,  if  martyrs  they  were,  could  be  accepted 
only  through  the  death  of  Christ.  They  were 
those  who  had  come  out  of  the  great  tribulation. 
If,  as  it  would  appear,  this  great  tribulation  was 
that  which  was  to  be  connected  with  the  grand 
consummation  so  speedily  to  be  accomplished, 
the  expression  may  perhaps  stand  for  the  re- 
deemed in  general. 

^  Weizsacker,  Das  Apostolische  Zeitalter  (second  edition),  p.  506. 


CHAPTER   V. 
PAUL'S   PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

Before  considering  the  positive  side  of  Paul's 
teaching,  it  is  important  to  glance  at  the  view 
which  he  took  of  the  general  history  of  man. 
Paul  had  his  Philosophy  of  History  as  truly  as 
any  of  our  later  thinkers  ;  and  it  is  impossible 
to  understand  his  idea  of  Christianity  except  as 
we  see  it  in  relation  to  his  whole  theory  of  life. 

The  Fall. 

So  far  as  his  specific  statements  go,  we  must 
start  with  the  notion  of  the  Fall.  *' Through  one 
man,"  he  tells  us,  "sin  entered  into  the  world, 
and  death  through  sin  ;  and  so  death  passed  unto 
all  men,  for  that  all  sinned ; "  or  as  it  is  other- 
wise translated,  "for  that  all  have  sinned."^ 
Here,  then,  begins  the  great  movement  of  his- 
tory. Obviously,  this  saying  points  back  to  a 
time  when  there  was  neither  death  nor  sin.     In 

1  Romans  v.  12. 


240  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

all  this  Paul  is,  to  a  large  extent,  uttering  the 
common  thought  of  his  time  and  people.  In 
what  manner  the  posterity  of  Adam  was  affected 
by  the  sin  of  their  first  parent,  Paul  does  not  tell 
us.  To  the  verse  that  I  quoted  I  gave,  so  far 
as  the  last  clause  is  concerned,  a  duplicate  ren- 
dering. Meyer,  for  instance,  with  whom  the  Re- 
vised Version  agrees,  insists  upon  the  strict  inter- 
pretation of  the  aorist,  making  the  passage  read, 
"  For  that  all  sinned."  Other  interpreters,  as 
Lipsius,  use  the  perfect  form,  "  For  that  all  have 
sinned."  The  translation  of  the  Vulgate  is  still 
different.  In  that  we  read,  *'  In  whom  all  sinned." 
Unquestionably  this  phrase  did  very  much  to 
give  form  to  the  notion  of  the  Fall  as  it  has  been 
held  by  the  Christian  church.  Such  picturesque 
translations  or  mistranslations  have  not  unfre- 
quently  shaped  the  thought  even  of  theologians. 
The  interpretation  of  Meyer  and  the  Revised 
Version  would  seem,  however,  to  amount  to  very 
much  the  same  thing  as  the  translation  of  the 
Vulgate  ;  the  force  of  the  aorist,  "  For  that  all 
sinned,"  putting  the  sinning  at  a  definite  mo- 
ment, which  would  be  that  on  which  Adam 
sinned.  The  other  translation,  "  For  that  all 
have  sinned,"  would  obviously  detach  the  sin  of 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  24 1 

Adam's  posterity  to  a  certain  extent  from  the 
sin  of  Adam.  Each  individual  would  be  regarded 
as  having  sinned  on  his  own  account. ^  Into 
these  niceties  of  Greek  construction  I  will  not 
enter.  I  will  only  remark  that  if  we  assume 
Weber  to  represent  the  Rabbinical  teaching  in 
regard  to  the  relation  of  man's  sin  to  the  sin  of 
Adam,  the  freer  translation,  "for  that  all  have 
sinned,"  is  more  in  conformity  with  the  teach- 
ings of  the  later  Jews.  According  to  the  Rab- 
binical teaching  as  presented  by  Weber,  there 
is  implanted  in  men  no  irresistible  necessity  of 
sinning ;  but  there  is  in  all  men  a  tendency  to 
sin  so  mighty  that  hardly  any  individual  can  re- 
sist it.2 

Paul  would  thus  seem  to  have  gone  beyond 
the  teaching  of  his  time,  so  far  as  the  necessity 
of  sinning  is  concerned.  The  Rabbinical  teach- 
ers were  possibly  governed  by  the  ethical  pre- 
sumption which  the  entire  Hebrew  history  had 
done  so  much  to  strengthen.  They  may  have 
wished  to  preserve  some  place,  however  slight, 
for  human  responsibility.    They  may  have  shrunk 

1  Dr.  Dwight,  the  American  editor  of  Meyer's  Commentary  on 
the  Romans^  insists  that  the  aorist  is  used  by  Paul  figuratively. 

2  Weber's  System  der  Paldstinischen  Theologie,  p.  231. 


242  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

from  the  notion  of  a  complete  loss  of  the  free- 
dom which  could  alone  make  sin  really  sinful. 
Perhaps  for  this  reason  they  clung  to  this  formal 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  will  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  tendency  to  sin  which  was  practically 
overmastering.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible 
that  Paul  was  unconsciously  led  by  his  enthusi- 
asm for  the  work  of  Christ,  and  the  deliverance 
that  came  through  him,  to  emphasize  the  abso- 
lute helplessness  of  man  in  the  presence  of  the 
sinful  diathesis  which  he  had  inherited.  From 
Adam  man  had  received  a  taint  which  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  escape  from  the  corruption 
of  sin.  "  They  that  are  in  the  flesh,"  he  tells  us, 
**  cannot  please  God."^  Paul's  whole  teaching 
implies  that  this  does  not  mean  merely  that 
those  who  are  living  in  conformity  with  the 
flesh  cannot  please  God.  Until  the  taint  is  re- 
moved, no  soul  can  help  living  in  accordance 
with  the  flesh.  On  the  other  hand,  Paul  does 
not  teach  that  the  flesh  originally  contained  an 
element  of  sinfulness.  His  language  is  explicit. 
"Through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world."  ^ 

1  Romans  viii.  8. 

2  Romans  v.  12.   See  Dickson's  Saint  PauVs  Use  of  the  Terms 
Flesh  and  Spirity  chapter  xi.  ;  especially  p.  319. 


PAUUS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  243 

It  was  not  transgression  that  entered  ;  it  was  sin. 
It  was  not  merely  that  sin  showed  itself  for  the 
first  time  in  the  disobedience  of  Adam.  With 
this  disobedience  sin  entered  into  the  world.  If 
sin  at  that  time  entered  into  the  world,  it  could 
not  have  be^n  already  bound  up  with  the  flesh. 
Moreover,  if  the  flesh  were  by  its  very  constitu- 
tion sinful,  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
this  sinfulness  to  have  been  removed  by  Christ. 
According  to  Paul's  teaching,  then,  there  was 
introduced  into  the  flesh  a  quality  of  sinfulness 
which  rendered  it  impossible  for  man  to  obtain 
righteousness  and  to  please  God. 

The  Promise  to  Abraham. 

The  second  great  step  in  the  evolution  of  hu- 
man history,  according  to  the  teaching  of  Paul, 
was  the  promise  that  was  given  to  Abraham,  "  In 
thee  shall  all  the  nations  be  blessed."  ^  Here 
begins  a  certain  differentiation  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  Abraham  was  called  of  God.  A 
promise  was  made  to  him  and  to  his  seed.  His 
posterity  was  to  be  set  apart  from  other  men. 
They  were  to  be  a  chosen  people,  the  elect  of 
God.     They  were  to  stand  in  a  special  relation 

1  Galatians  iii.  8. 


244  ^-^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

to  God.  God  was  to  be  in  a  special  manner 
their  God.  They  were  to  serve  him,  and  he  was 
to  guide  and  protect  them,  and  grant  them  his 
special  favor.  This  was,  however,  not  on  their 
own  account  or  for  their  own  special  gain.  It  was 
a  process  which  was  being  carried  on  for  the  sake 
of  the  whole  world.  The  Hebrews  were  placed 
over  against  the  world  for  the  sake  of  the  world. 
The  course'  of  human  history  was  divided  into 
two  great  lines  of  movement ;  but  this  separation 
was  with  reference  to  a  future  reunion.  It  was 
as  when,  for  some  strategic  gain,  an  army  is  sep- 
arated into  two  great  divisions  which  are  later 
to  effect  a  junction.  Or  we  might,  perhaps,  say 
better,  that  the  Hebrew  people  was  like  a  divi- 
sion of  an  army  detailed  for  some  special  pur- 
pose, which,  when  this  purpose  is  accomplished, 
is  to  rejoin  -the  main  body. 

In  all  this  Paul  took  a  view  of  the  election  of 
Israel  very  different  from  that  held  by  his  coun- 
trymen. The  Jews  had  felt  themselves  selected 
by  God  on  account  of  his  special  favor.  The 
promises  in  regard  to  the  coming  Messiah  they 
felt  to  be  prophecies  of  their  special  glory. 
Through  him  they  were  to  become  the  rulers  of 
the  world.     The  nations  were  to  be  tributary  to 


PAUVS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         24« 

Jerusalem.  Paul  shared  with  them  the  sense  of 
the  glory  of  his  people  ;  but  with  him  it  was  the 
glory  of  service.  He  interpreted  the  dignity  of 
his  race  in  the  spirit  of  that  saying  of  Jesus  : 
"  Whosoever  would  be  first  among  you  shall  be 
your  servant."  1  **What  advantage  then  hath 
the  Jew  1  "  he  asks  ;  "  or  what  is  the  profit  of  cir- 
cumcision }  Much  every  way  :  first  of  all,  that 
they  were  intrusted  with  the  oracles  of  God."  ^ 
The  advantage  of  the  Jew  was  thus  that  he  was 
selected  to  be  the  bearer  of  the  messages  of 
God  to  men  ;  that  he  was  to  be  the  instrument 
in  working  out  the  great  plan  of  salvation,  the 
results  of  which  were  to  be  common  to  the  race. 

The  Law. 

The  next  stage  in  the  unfolding  of  the  plan  of 
human  history,  as  Paul  understood  it,  was  the  giv- 
ing of  the  law.  It  was  that  they  might  receive 
this  law  that  the  children  of  Abraham  had  been 
separated  from  the  other  nations  of  the  earth. 
In  this  Paul  agreed  with  the  Jewish  teachers. 
Indeed,  he  lagged  not  a  whit  behind  the  most 
patriotic  and  enthusiastic  Jews  in  his  estimate 
of  the  holiness  and  grandeur  of  the  law.     "  The 

1  Matthew  xx.  27.  2  Romans  iii.  i  f. 


246  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

law,"  he  tells  us,  "is  holy,  and  the  commandment 
holy,  and  righteous,  and  good."  ^  And  again  he 
cries  :  "  For  we  know  that  the  law  is  spiritual."  ^ 
When,  however,  he  came  to  speak  of  the  purpose 
and  the  effect  of  the  law,  he  differed  absolutely 
from  the  view  of  the  Jews  in  general.  The  view 
which  Paul  held  in  regard  to  the  calling  of  his 
people  was,  as  we  have  seen,  different  from  that 
held  by  them.  His  view  of  the  purpose  for  which 
the  law  was  given  was  diametrically  opposite  to 
that  of  his  people.  By  this  alone  Paul  would 
have  been  utterly  separated  from  the  national 
life.  The  Jews  believed  that  the  law  had  been 
given  as  a  rule  of  conduct,  and  was  designed  to 
lead  men  to  righteousness.  It  would  have  seemed 
to  them  a  truism  to  say  that  the  law  was  given 
in  order  that  it  might  be  obeyed.  It  was  one  of 
the  most  startling  of  the  paradoxes  in  which  the 
thought  of  Paul  took  shape,  that,  according  to 
him,  the  law  was  given,  not  that  it  might  be 
obeyed,  but  that  it  might  be  disobeyed.^  The 
law,  he  tells  us,  "was  added  because  of  trans- 

1  Romans  vii.  12. 
^  Romans  vii.  14. 

^  Compare  Pfleiderer's  Paulinismus  (second  edition),  p.  93, 
and  Meyer's  Commentary,  a.  1. 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         247 

gressions."  ^  More  clearly  rendered,  the  pas- 
sage teaches  that  the  law  was  added  for  the  sake 
of  transgressions.  There  were  no  transgres- 
sions, and  there  could  have  been  none,  before 
the  law  was  given.  In  another  place  Paul  says 
with  equal  explicitness  :  "  The  law  came  in  be- 
side, that  the  trespass  might  abound."  ^  We 
have  then  the  startling  proposition  that  the  law 
was  set  forth  in  order  that  it  might  be  broken. 

To  understand  this  position,  which  seems  at 
first  sight  so  strange,  we  must  remember  what 
was,  according  to  the  teaching  of  Paul,  the  con- 
dition in  which  man  was  left  by  the  sin  of  Adam. 
As  we  have  seen,  by  this  sin  the  flesh  received  a 
taint.  On  the  one  side,  man  became  mortal,  so 
that  **  death  reigned  from  Adam  until  Moses, 
even  over  them  that  had  not  sinned  after  the 
likeness  of  Adam's  transgression."  ^  During 
this  time  there  would  seem  to  have  been,  accord- 
ing to  the  thought  of  Paul,  no  transgression,  be- 
cause there  can  be  none  without  law  ;  and  there 
was  no  formal  and  express  command  of  God  from 
the  time  Adam  was  forbidden  to  eat  of  the  fruit 
of  the  tree  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  until  the  time 

1  Galatians  iii.  19.  2  Romans  v.  20. 

3  Romans  v.  14. 


248  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

when  the  law  was  given  to  Moses  upon  Sinai. 
Paul,  elsewhere,  in  the  same  epistle,  speaks  in- 
deed of  the  law  written  upon  the  hearts  of  those 
to  whom  the  Mosaic  law  had  not  come;^  but 
this  he  here  leaves  out  of  the  account,  regarding 
it  perhaps  as  of  a  less  formal  character.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  whether  there  were  or  were 
not  transgressions,  the  taint  of  sin  was  there  just 
the  same,  and  the  result  of  this  taint  was  death. 

On  the  other  hand,  by  this  taint  of  sin  men 
were  not  only  exposed  to  death,  they  were  ex- 
posed to  the  wrath  of  God.  "  We  .  .  .  were  by 
nature,"  we  read  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians, 
"children  of  wrath,  even  as  the  rest;"^  ^^d  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  we  read :  **  They 
that  are  in  the  flesh  cannot  please  God."  ^ 

Sin  was  thus  bound  up  in  the  very  life  of  man. 
It  was  like  a  disease  which  lurks  in  the  system, 
sapping  its  vitality,  but  of  which  the  sufferer  is 
unconscious.  The  object  of  the  law  was  to  make 
men  conscious  of  their  sinfulness.  It  was  to 
make  them  feel  themselves  helpless  in  the  pres- 
ence of  this  evil. 

Ii)  this  connection  it  is  to  be  noticed  that,  not- 

1  Romans  ii.  1 5.  2  Ephesians  ii.  3. 

8  Romans  viii.  8. 


PAUUS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         249 

withstanding  all  that  he  said  of  the  power  of  sin, 
Paul  did  not  teach  the  total  depravity  of  man. 
There  was  an  inner  self,  which  was  in  a  special 
manner  the  self,  which  was  not  corrupted  by  the 
sin  of  the  flesh,  but  was  held  in  bondage  by  it. 
"  I  delight,"  Paul  said,  "  in  the  law  of  God  after 
the  inward  man  :  but  I  see  a  different  law  in  my 
members,  warring  against  the  law  of  my  mind, 
and  bringing  me  into  captivity  under  the  law  of 
sin  which  is  in  my  members."  ^  It  is  interesting 
to  notice  how,  in  the  whole  passage  from  which 
these  words  are  taken,  Paul  uses  the  pronouns 
"  I  "  and  "  me,"  in  reference  to  the  higher  life, 
thus  identifying  himself  with  it.  It  was  pre- 
cisely to  stir  up  this  double  consciousness,  the 
strife  which  this  passage  so  eloquently  describes, 
that  the  law  was  given. 

Let  us  look  more  closely  at  the  manner  in 
which  the  law  reaches  this  result.  "  The  law 
came  in,"  Paul  tells  us,  "  that  the  trespass  might 
abound."  ^  Agairr  he  says  :  "  For  the  law  work- 
eth  wrath ;  but  where  there  is  no  law,  neither  is 
there  transgression."  ^  "  For  when  we  were  in 
the  flesh,  the  sinful  passions,  which  were  through 

1  Romans  vii.  22  f.  2  Romans  v.  20. 

CHIVEBSllir 


3  Romans  iv.  15. 

'f^         OP  W€ 


250  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

the  law,  wrought  m  our  members  to  bring  forth 
fruit  unto  death. "^  '*  I  had  not  known  sin,  ex- 
cept through  the  law  :  for  I  had  not  known  cov- 
eting, except  the  law  had  said.  Thou  shalt  not 
covet :  but  sin,  finding  occasion,  wrought  in  me 
through  the  commandment  all  manner  of  covet- 
ing :  for  apart  from  the  law  sin  is  dead.  And 
I  was  alive  apart  from  the  law  once  :  but  when 
the  commandment  came,  sin  revived,  and  I  died  ; 
and  the  commandment,  which  was  unto  life,  this 
I  found  to  be  unto  death  :  for  sin,  finding  occa- 
sion, through  the  commandment  beguiled  me, 
and  through  it  slew  me.  So  that  the  law  is  holy, 
and  the  commandment  holy,  and  righteous,  and 
good.  Did  then  that  which  is  good  become 
death  unto  me  }  God  forbid.  But  sin,  that  it 
might  be  shewn  to  be  sin,  by  working  death  to 
me  through  that  which  is  good ;  —  that  through 
the  commandment  sin  might  become  exceeding 
sinful."  2 

Quotations  from  Paul  in  regard  to  this  matter 
need  not  be  further  multiplied.  The  last  pas- 
sage cited  tells,  however,  the  whole  story.  The 
object  of  the  law  was  that  sin  might  by  it  be 
made  to  appear  exceeding  sinful. 

1  Romans  vii.  5.  ^  Romans  vii.  7-14. 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         25 1 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  sin  was  itself 
increased  by  the  law.  The  law  was  not  given  for 
the  sake  of  sin,  but  "  for  the  sake  of  transgres- 
sions." The  sin  was  there.  It  was  a  constant 
element  of  the  life.  I  am  not  sure  that  it  was 
not  a  fixed  quantity.  Through  transgressions 
this  latent  sin  manifested  itself  in  all  its  ugli- 
ness. 

The  law  was  given  for  a  double  purpose.  In 
the  first  place,  its  effect  was  to  stir  up  sin,  as 
one  might  stir  up  to  rage  a  wild  beast  in  the  jun- 
gle, in  order  that  one  might  do  battle  with  it. 
In  the  second  place,  its  effect  was  to  make  sin 
"  appear  exceeding  sinful."  It  did  this  by  the 
manifestation  of  the  ideal  holiness.  Seeing  this, 
men  could  feel  as  they  had  not  felt  before  the 
sinfulness  of  their  nature,  by  which  they  were 
separated  from  this  ideal.  Thus  on  the  one  side 
the  soul  was  made  to  feel  the  reality  and  the 
hatefulness  of  sin  ;  on  the  other,  it  was  made  to 
realize  and  aspire  towards  the  beauty  of  the  di- 
vine ideal.  Thus  the  law  aroused  both  elements 
of  the  nature.  It  stimulated  them  to  conflict. 
The  inward  man,  we  must  assume,  would  not  by 
itself  have  reached  the  conception  of  righteous- 
ness without  the  law  any  more  than  sin  would 


252  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

without  it  have  revealed  its  true  nature.  "  I  am 
carnal,  sold  under  sin,"  said  Paul ;  "  for  that 
which  I  do  I  know  not  :  for  not  what  I  would, 
that  do  I  practise  ;  but  what  I  hate,  that  I  do. 
But  if  what  I  would  not,  that  I  do,  I  consent  unto 
the  law  that  it  is  good.  So  now  it  is  no  more  I 
that  do  it,  but  sin  which  dwelleth  in  me.  ...  I 
find  then  the  law,  that,  to  me  who  would  do  good, 
evil  is  present.  For  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God 
after  the  inward  man  :  but  I  see  a  different  law 
in  my  members,  warring  against  the  law  of  my 
mind,  and  bringing  me  into  captivity  under  the 
law  of  sin  which  is  in  my  members."  ^  Through- 
out Paul  .identifies  himself,  as  we  have  seen,  with 
the  side  of  righteousness.  The  sin  is  not  his 
sin  ;  it  is  in  his  members,  that  is,  in  his  flesh. 
None  the  less  he  cannot  escape  from  it.  He 
feels  himself  in  bondage  to  a  power  which  is  in 
him,  but  not  of  him.  He  cries :  "  O  wretched 
man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me  out  of  the 
body  of  this  death  .!*  "  2  When  this  exclamation 
has  been  uttered  the  law  has  done  its  work.  It 
has  brought  the  two  elements  of  the  nature 
each  into  the  full  consciousness  of  itself  and  of 
its  opposite.     The  law  has  aroused  sin  to  show 

^  Romans  vii.  14-23.  2  Romans  vii.  24. 


PAUVS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         253 

itself  in  its  sinfulness.  It  has  stimulated  the 
inner  man  to  assert  itself.  This  inner  man  has 
seen  and  recognized  the  ideal  of  holiness.  It 
feels  itself  in  accord  with  this.  It  gives  to  it  its 
whole  reverence,  and  would  give  to  it  its  whole 
obedience.  The  lower  nature,  however,  holds  it 
back.  It  is  a  struggle  of  life  with  death,  —  with 
death,  the  whole  horror  and  loathsomeness  of 
which  it  feels.  All  this  the  law  has  accom- 
plished. It  was  what  it  was  set  to  accomplish. 
It  has  done  its  work  and  may  pass  away. 

One  other  aspect  of  the  work  of  the  law  is 
alluded  to  by  Paul,  so  far  as  I  remember,  only 
once,  and  then  very  briefly  and  somewhat  vaguely. 
He  writes  to  the  Galatians  :  "  But  before  faith 
came,  we  were  kept  in  ward  under  the  law,  shut 
up  unto  the  faith  which  should  afterwards  be 
revealed.  So  that  the  law  hath  been  our  tutor  to 
bring  us  unto  Christ."  ^  Here  Paul  would  seem 
to  refer  to  the  law  as  that  which  held  the  Jewish 
people  together,  giving  them  a  distinctive  unity, 
so  that,  amid  all  the  changes  that  were  going  on 
around  them,  they  should  remain  a  chosen  peo- 
ple, ready  to  receive  the  gospel  when  it  came. 

1  Galatians  iii.  23,  24. 


254  ^-^^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

The  Transitoriness  of  the  Law. 

The  next  point  that  we  have  to  recognize  in 
Paul's  scheme  of  history  is  his  assumption  that 
the  law  was  from  the  beginning  intended  to  be 
temporary.  It  was  not  an  expedient  that  was 
tried  and  failed,  and  therefore  gave  place  to  some- 
thing better.  It  was  established  to  do  a  definite 
work,  and  with  the  intention  that  it  should  dis- 
appear when  this  work  was  accomplished.  The 
law  thus  was,  and  was  intended  to  be,  self-limit- 
ing. The  proof  of  this  Paul  found  in  the  fact 
that  the  promise  was  given  before  the  law  was 
established.  "  To  Abraham,"  he  tells  us,  "  his 
faith  was  reckoned  for  righteousness.  How  then 
was  it  reckoned  t  when  he  was  in  circumcision, 
or  in  uncircumcision  }  Not  in  circumcision,  but 
in  uncircumcision.  .  .  .  For  not  through  the  law 
was  the  promise  to  Abraham  or  to  his  seed,  that 
he  should  be  the  heir  of  the  world,  but  through 
the  righteousness  of  faith.  For  if  they  which 
are  of  the  law  be  heirs,  faith  is  made  void,  and 
the  promise  is  made  of  none  effect."  ^ 

In  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  Paul  uses  lan- 
guage which  is  even  more  explicit.     "And  the 

1  Romans  iv.  9-14. 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         255 

scripture,"  he  says,  "  foreseeing  that  God  would 
justify  the  Gentiles  by  faith,  preached  the  gos- 
pel beforehand  unto  Abraham,  saying,  In  thee 
shall  all  the  nations  be  blessed."  ^  Here  we 
have  the  distinct  affirmation  that  it  was  foreseen 
that  the  Gentiles  would  be  justified  by  faith ; 
that  is,  that  the  law  would  at  some  time  give 
way,  that  the  wall  which  was  set  up  in  the  law 
would  be  torn  down,  and  that  the  Gentiles  who 
had  not  known  the  law  should  become  partakers 
of  the  promise. 

It  has  become  the  custom  to  exaggerate  the 
difference  between  the  views  of  Paul  and  those 
of  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews.  In  point  of  fact, 
both  say  substantially  the  same  thing.  It  is  very 
interesting  to  notice  the  freedom  with  which  the 
writer  to  the  Hebrews  uses  the  ideas  which  he 
must  have  received  from  Paul.  He  does  not 
repeat  them  as  a  learner  might  repeat  his  lesson. 
He  shows  that  he  has  thoroughly  appropriated 
them.  He  expresses  them  as  freely  as  if  they 
were  of  his  own  devising.  The  exposition  is  so 
independent  that,  looked  at  superficially,  it  seems 
to  be  treating  of  a  wholly  different  matter.  It 
is  only  when  we  reach  the  central  thought  of 

1  Galatians  iii.  8. 


256  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

each,  that  we  find  that  their  thoughts  are  the 
same.  This  shows  how  natural  the  thought  of 
Paul  was  ;  how  it  sprang  of  itself  out  of  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time.  Paul  had  simply  to 
point,  and  men  saw  for  themselves.  We  have 
already  found  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  a  most  vivid  presentation  of 
Paul's  view  of  the  crucifixion,  in  which  the  form 
is  entirely  different  from  any  which  Paul  himself 
had  used.  In  the  aspect  of  the  case  which  we 
are  here  considering,  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews 
reaches  the  same  result  at  which  Paul  had  ar- 
rived, but  he  illustrates  it  in  a  different  manner. 
Where  Paul  spoke  of  Abraham,  the  writer  to 
the  Hebrews  speaks  of  Melchizedek.^  I  am  not 
sure  that  the  latter  example  does  not  furnish 
the  best  illustration  of  the  truth  that  both  were 
striving  to  establish.  This  truth  was,  that  the 
law,  from  its  very  inception,  was  intended  to  be 
exhibited  as  something  limited  and  transient.  In 
the  Old  Testament  it  is  related  that  Abraham 
paid  tithes  to  Melchizedek  and  received  a  bless- 
ing from  him.  This  shows  that  Melchizedek 
must  have  been  a  greater  personage  than  Abra- 
ham.    In  the  homage  which  Abraham  paid  to 

1  Hebrews  vi.  and  vii. 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  257 

Melchizedek  the  descendants  of  Abraham  were 
involved.  In  him  the  whole  Levitical  priesthood 
did  reverence  to  this  personage  as  to  their  supe- 
rior, Paul  had  shown  that  the  promise  was  given 
to  Abraham  before  the  establishment  of  the  law. 
Around  the  narrow  circle  of  the  law  he  had 
drawn  the  larger  circle  of  the  life  of  Abraham. 
The  writer  to  the  Hebrews  draws  about  the  life 
of  Abraham  the  still  larger  circle  of  that  extra- 
Abrahamic  life  which  was  represented  by  Mel- 
chizedek. By  this  process  the  Mosaic  law  is 
exhibited  in  its  real  relation  to  the  history  of  the 
world.  It  is  as  when  we  look  down  upon  some 
city  which  had  absorbed  our  life  from  some  lofty 
height  which  reveals  its  insignificance.  The  pa- 
triarch Abraham  stands  in  relations  vaster  than 
those  of  the  law,  while  he  himself  bows  before  a 
still  larger  life. 

The  point  which  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  is 
urging  becomes  vastly  more  clear  and  important 
by  his  use  of  a  verse  of  the  one  hundred  and 
tenth  Psalm  upon  which  he  seized  with  the  in- 
sight of  genius.  We  can  only  wonder  that  it 
escaped  the  vision  of  his  great  master  Paul,  and 
are  forced  to  admire  all  the  more  the  dialectic 
skill   of  this    strangely    unknown   writer  whose 


258  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

words  we  are  considering.  The  passage  is  this  : 
"  The  Lord  hath  sworn,  and  will  not  repent, 
thou  art  a  priest  forever  after  the  order  of  Mel- 
chizedek.i  This  verse  was  understood  to  refer 
to  the  Messiah,  and  what  important  aspects  of 
his  work  does  it  suggest  !  A  priest  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek !  Of  what  order  was  the 
priesthood  of  Melchizedek  ?  One  thing  is  evi- 
dent, namely,  that  it  was  not  of  the  Levitical 
order.  If  we  should  interpret  the  passage  from 
our  own  point  of  view,  that  is,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  simple  student  of  history,  we  should 
say  that  the  priesthood  of  Melchizedek  was  of 
the  patriarchal  order.  This  is  to  say,  that  it  was 
of  an  order  which  was  not  separated  from  the 
relations  of  ordinary  life.  The  patriarch  was  not 
a  priest  because  he  was  set  apart  to  that  office, 
and  thus  stood  aloof  from  the  ordinary  relations 
of  the  world.  He  was  a  priest  on  account  of 
these  relationships.  It  was  because  he  lived 
among  his  descendants  as  their  head  and  their 
ruler,  that  he  was  fitted  to  be  the  utterer  of  their 
prayers  and  the  performer  of  their  sacrificial 
rites.  If  Christ  was  a  priest  after  the  order  of 
Melchizedek  it  was  because  he  stood  like  him  in 

1  Psalm  ex.  4;  Hebrews  v.  6. 


PAUVS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  259 

the  open.  It  was  because  he  was  not  hedged 
about  by  priestly  limitations  and  specific  ordi- 
nances. It  was  because  he  stood  among  men  as 
their  actual  leader  in  spiritual  things,  because 
his  natural  attitude  towards  men  fitted  him  to 
be  their  priest,  and  indeed  forced  this  priesthood 
upon  him  ;  it  was  for  this  that  he  stood  to  them 
in  this  sacred  relation.  In  a  word,  the  priest- 
hood of  Christ  resembled  that  of  Melchizedek  in 
being  an  extra-Levitical  priesthood,  based  not 
upon  priestly  descent,  but  upon  the  general  fit- 
ness of  things.  This,  I  say,  is  the  resemblance 
which  we  should  find  between  the  priesthood  of 
Christ  and  that  of  Melchizedek,  if  we  looked  at 
the  thing  from  a  purely  natural  and  historical 
point  of  view.  Whatever  of  mystical  or  allegori- 
cal significance  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  may 
have  introduced  into  the  story  of  Melchizedek, 
considerations  similar  to  those  that  have  just 
been  adduced  lay  at  the  bottom  of  his  reasoning. 
The  writer  insists  that  Melchizedek  was  without 
father,  without  mother,  and  without  genealogy, 
meaning  by  this,  as  all  admit,  that  he  was  not  of 
priestly  descent ;  that  as  a  priest  he  was,  as  the 
Romans  would  say,  novus  homo.  Thus  Paul  em- 
phasizes the  fact  that  the  priesthood  of  Christ 


26o  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

was  not  after  the  order  of  Aaron  :  "  For  he  of 
whom  these  things  are  said  belongeth  to  another 
tribe,  from  which  no  man  hath  given  attendance 
at  the  altar.  For  it  is  evident  that  our  Lord  hath 
sprung  out  of  Judah  ;  as  to  which  tribe  Moses 
spake  nothing  concerning  priests."  ^  Again, 
Christ  hath  been  made  a  priest,  "  not  after  the 
law  of  a  carnal  commandment,  but  after  the 
power  of  an  endless  life."  ^ 

The  point  which  I  wish  to  emphasize  in  all 
this  is  that  to  Paul  and  to  his  followers  the  law 
carried  from  the  very  start  the  marks  of  limita- 
tion. The  doing  away  with  the  law  was  no  after- 
thought ;  it  was  bound  up  with  its  very  structure. 
Christ  standing  outside  the  law  joined  hands 
with  Abraham,  as  Abraham  stood  before  the  law 
was  given.  Standing  in  the  midst  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, Christ  joined  hands  with  Melchizedek,  the 
Gentile  priest  and  ruler  to  whom  Abraham,  and 
through  him  the  whole  Levitical  priesthood, 
bowed,  and  to  whom  they  paid  tithes.  The  law 
coming  between  them  could  not  separate  them. 
It  was  like  a  cloud  floating  in  the  heavens,  des- 
tined to  be  lost  in  the  measureless  expanse. 

The  law,  then,  was  established  for  a  definite 

1  Hebrews  vii.  13  f.  2  Hebrews  vii.  16. 


PAUVS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         26 1 

purpose,  namely,  to  fit  men  to  receive  the  great 
salvation  that  was  to  come  through  Christ.  When 
this  salvation  came,  the  law  was  to  pass  away. 
The  promise  which  had  been  by  the  law  shut  up 
unto  the  Jews  was  to  break  through  this  limita- 
tion, and  was  to  include  the  Gentile  world  in  its 
gracious  sweep.  The  Lord,  "  through  whom  are 
all  things,"  ^  was  to  leave  his  preexistent  glory.^ 
He  was  to  descend  to  earth  and  be  made  in  fash- 
ion as  a  man.  He  was  to  be  "born  of  a  woman, 
born  under  the  law,  that  he  might  redeem  them 
which  were  under  the  law."^  How  this  deliver- 
ance was  to  be  accomplished  we  have  seen.  The 
law  was  to  be  honored  even  in  its  displacement. 
It  was  itself  to  speak  the  word  that  should  give 
liberty  to  the  followers  of  Jesus.  Jesus  was,  by 
his  crucifixion,  to  become  subject  to  the  curse  of 
the  law.  He  was  to  become  in  the  view  of  the 
law  polluted  and  polluting.  Through  this  legal 
pollution  his  followers  were  to  become  outlawed, 
and  through  this  outlawry  they  were  to  become 
free. 

1  I  Corinthians  viii.  6.  ^2  Corinthians  viii.  9. 

*  Galatians  iv.  4,  5. 


262  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

The  Doctrine  of  Election. 

Here  we  may  conceive  certain  grave  questions 
to  have  occurred  to  Paul.  The  Jews  were  the 
chosen  people.  The  promise  of  the  coming  Mes- 
siah had  been  made  to  them.  They  had  been 
guided  and  preserved  for  this  event.  How  could 
it  happen  that  just  when  the  fulfilment  of  the 
promise  had  been  reached,  when  the  Messiah 
had  actually  come,  the  people  to  whom  he  came 
and  who  had  prepared  the  way  for  this  coming 
should  fail  to  recognize  him,  should  reject  him 
with  scorn,  should  crucify  him,  and  thus  render 
him  accursed  }  Behind  this  question  may  have 
arisen  another  which  was  yet  more  momentous. 
Suppose  that  all  this  had  not  happened  ;  sup- 
pose that  the  Jews  had  recognized  their  Messiah 
as  might  have  been  expected ;  suppose  that  in- 
stead of  crucifying  him  they  had  met  him  with 
submission  and  honor,  and  had  cried,  "  Blessed 
is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  ; " 
in  this  case,  how  could  the  work  of  the  Mes- 
siah have  been  accomplished  t  In  what  way 
could  the  law  have  been  annulled  }  Christ  born 
under  the  law  would  have  lived  and  died  under 
the  law  ;  how,   then,  would  the  promise  to  the 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  263 

Gentiles  have  been  fulfilled?  The  Jews  would 
have  had  their  Messiah,  and  the  Gentiles  would 
have  remained  "  without  hope  and  without  God 
in  the  world."  Surely  this  was  too  momentous 
a  matter  to  be  left  to  chance.  The  hand  that 
had  led  the  chosen  people  thus  far,  the  hand 
that  had  guided  Abraham  in  his  wanderings,  that 
had  guided  the  children  of  Israel  in  their  long 
and  eventful  history,  could  not  leave  them  at 
this  decisive  moment  of  their  career.  Here  we 
meet  one  of  the  boldest  —  we  might  say  one  of 
the  most  audacious  —  movements  in  the  Pauline 
strategy.  Just  as  Isaac  had  been  chosen  to  be 
one  of  the  great  leaders  in  the  development  of 
the  Hebrew  race  and  to  be  the  medium  through 
which  the  promise  given  to  Abraham  was  passed 
on  to  future  ages,  while  Ishmael  was  left  in  the 
outer  world  of  unconsecrated  life,^  so  in  this 
supreme  moment  the  divine  oversight  showed  it- 
self in  the  choice  of  the  instruments  by  which 
the  consummation  was  to  be  accomplished.  As 
Abraham  and  his  descendants  were  detailed  for 
the  special  duty  of  leading  up  the  history  of  the 
world  to  the  moment  when  the  Messiah  should 
appear,  so  now  that  he  had  appeared,  Jews  were 

1  Galatians  iv.  21  ff. 


264  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

detailed  to  the  various  offices  which  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  Messiah's  work  required.  A  small 
part  were  appointed  to  be  believers,  in  order 
that  so  far  as  the  Jews  were  concerned  the 
transaction  might  not  be  without  avail ;  for  it 
would  be  incredible  that  among  the  chosen  peo- 
ple there  should  be  none  to  be  the  recipients 
of  the  new  grace  and  the  transmitters  of  it  to 
the  Gentile  world.  On  the  other  hand,  a  part 
of  the  Jewish  people,  and,  as  it  would  appear, 
the  larger  part,  were  detailed  to  reject  him. 
Without  their  rejection  of  him  in  the  form  that 
I  have  so  often  described,  the  work  of  the  Mes- 
siah could  not  have  been  accomplished.  Without 
this  the  Jewish  Christian  would  have  remained 
under  the  dominion  and  the  condemnation  of 
the  law ;  while  the  Gentiles  would  have  been 
shut  out  from  any  share  in  the  divine  promises 
and  from  any  hope  of  salvation.  Over  and  over 
again,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  Paul  ex- 
plains to  the  Gentiles,  to  whom  he  was  writing, 
that  the  blindness  and  disobedience  of  the  Jews 
were  the  means  of  the  salvation  of  the  Gentile 
world.  "I  say  then,"  cried  Paul,  "Did  they 
stumble  that  they  might  fall  t  God  forbid  :  but 
by  their   fall   salvation   is  come  unto  the   Gen- 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  26$ 

tiles."  1  Their  falling,  it  would  appear  from  this, 
was  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  the  means  to  an 
end  which  could  not  have  been  accomplished 
without  it.  Again,  we  are  taught  that  *'  the 
casting  away  of  them  is  the  reconciling  of  the 
world."  2  "Their  fall,"  Paul  says,  "is  the  riches 
of  the  world,  and  their  loss  the  riches  of  the 
Gentiles."^  To  his  Gentile  readers,  Paul  said: 
"As  touching  the  gospel,  they  are  enemies  for 
your  sake."^  The  Gentile  was  represented  as 
saying,  "  Branches  were  broken  off,  that  I  might 
be  grafted  in."  ^  In  a  word,  the  Gentiles  had 
obtained  mercy  by  the  disobedience  of  the 
Jews.^ 

This  is  the  signification  of  the  doctrine  of 
election  urged  by  Paul,  so  far  at  least  as  the 
great  emphasis  laid  upon  it  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  is  concerned;  and  it  is  this  which  justi- 
fies the  prominent  place  given  to  the  doctrine  of 
election  in  this  epistle,  in  which  Paul  presents 
in  its  most  complete  and  systematic  form  his 
philosophy  of  history.  He  shows  that  in  the 
past  God  has  chosen  his  workmen  as  he  would, 

1  Romans  xi.  ii.  ^  Romans  xi.  15. 

8  Romans  xi.  12.  *  Romans  xi.  28. 

fi  Romans  xi.  19.  *  Romans  xi.  30. 


266  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

and  has  assigned  to  each  his  task.  To  some  he 
has  appointed  an  honorable  service.  Others  he 
has  made  for  service  that  was  dishonorable.  Both 
were  alike  his  instruments.  "  Hath  not  the  pot- 
ter," he  exclaims,  "a  right  over  the  clay,  from 
the  same  lump  to  make  one  part  a  vessel  unto 
honour,  and  another  unto  dishonour  t  "  ^  It  is  to 
be  noted,  however,  that  both  are  vessels  designed 
for  a  certain  use.  The  potter  does  not  make  a 
vessel  for  dishonor  merely  that  it  may  be  dishon- 
ored. He  makes  it,  because  there  is  a  certain 
purpose  that  only  such  a  vessel  can  accomplish. 
So,  according  to  Paul,  God  chooses  his  instru- 
ments and  shapes  them  to  his  use.  They  are, 
however,  instruments  by  means  of  which  his 
great  purposes  can  be  accomplished. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  three  cases  in  which 
Paul  chiefly  recognizes  the  manifestation  of  this 
power  of  election  and  reprobation  are  the  three 
great  epochs  in  the  evolution  of  the  divine  plan 
as  manifested  in  the  history  of  Israel.  The  first 
was  the  setting  apart  of  Israel  to  be  the  special 
people  of  God,  by  the  election  of  Isaac  and  the 
rejection  of  Ishmael ;  and  later  and  more  strik- 
ingly by  the  election  of  Jacob  and  the  rejection 

1  Romans  ix.  21. 


PAUUS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         26/ 

of  Esau,  *'  as  it  is  written,  Jacob  I  loved,  but 
Esau  I  hated."  ^  The  second  was  the  harden- 
ing of  the  heart  of  Pharaoh,  when  Israel  was 
called  forth  from  the  yoke  of  the  Egyptians  to 
become  an  independent  nation.^  What  part  the 
hardening  of  Pharaoh's  heart,  so  that  he  re- 
fused to  let  the  people  go,  was  supposed  to  play 
in  the  transaction  we  are  not  told.  Possibly  it 
was  to  insure  the  complete  severance  of  the 
Israelites  from  the  Egyptians.  The  two  peoples 
parted  in  hate,  and  the  separate  and  independent 
existence  of  Israel  was  thus  established.  Possi- 
bly, however,  Paul  had  no  other  distinct  thought 
than  that  God  hardened  Pharaoh's  heart  in  the 
furtherance  of  his  designs.  The  third  case  was 
that  in  which  the  Christians  became  free  from 
the  Jewish  law.  In  this  case,  it  is  obvious  that 
without  the  hardening  of  the  hearts  of  the  Jews 
this  result  would  not  have  been  reached,  and  the 
religion  of  Jesus  would  not  have  entered  upon 
its  independent  life.  So  we  read,  *'God  gave 
them  a  spirit  of  stupor,  eyes  that  they  should 
not  see,  and  ears  that  they  should  not  hear, 
unto  this  very  day."^ 

1  Romans  ix.  13.  2  Romans  ix.  17. 

8  Romans  xi.  8. 


268  THE  GOSPEL  OE  PAUL. 

Paul  evidently  felt  that  this  view  of  the  sover- 
eignty of  God  might  seem  to  strike  at  the  foun- 
dations of  morality.  If  men  are  serving  God 
while  they  appear  to  be  disobeying  him,  how 
can  they  be  blamed  ?  If  by  means  of  the  rejec- 
tion of  Christ  by  the  Jews  God  was  fulfilling  his 
wise  purposes,  is  not  this  act  which  seemed  so 
criminal  taken  out  of  the  category  of  wrong- 
doing ?  Must  we  not  justify  the  evil  deed? 
Must  we  not  go  even  farther  than  this,  and 
recognize  the  general  principle  that  wrong  is 
not  wrong,  if  it  be  performed  for  a  good  end  ? 
Indeed,  if  the  Christians  claimed  that  the  rejec- 
tion and  crucifixion  of  Christ  by  the  Jews  were 
simply  the  working  out  of  God's  righteous  plan, 
might  not  the  impression  be  easily  produced 
that  they  took  this  view  of  human  actions  in 
general,  and  might  they  not  be  slanderously  re- 
ported as  saying,  "  Let  us  do  evil,  that  good  may 
come?"^  So  at  least  I  am  inclined  to  under- 
stand the  somewhat  obscure  passage  with  which 
the  third  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
opens  ;  assuming  that  the  first  person  is  used  to 
give  greater  vividness  to  the  statement.  To  the 
ethical  difficulties  that  he  raises  Paul  gives  no 

1  Romans  iii.  8. 


PAUVS  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         269 

theoretical  solution.  He  sees  a  divine  destiny 
controlling  the  acts  that  seem  most  free,  and 
causing  those  that  seem  most  wrong  :  and  to 
the  question,  "  Is  God  unrighteous  who  visiteth 
with  wrath  ?  "  he  can  only  answer,  "  God  forbid  : 
for  then  how  shall  God  judge  the  world  ? "  while 
the  rumor  that  he  maintained  that  wrong  might 
be  done  for  the  sake  of  the  good  that  should 
result  he  could  only  stamp  as  a  vile  slander. 

There  is  no  passage  in  which  one  sees  more 
clearly  within  the  compass  of  so  few  lines  the 
working  of  the  mind  of  Paul,  as  it  is  struck  by 
one  consideration  after  another.  In  the  previ- 
ous chapter  he  had  been  painting  the  shortcom- 
ings and  the  sins  of  the  Jews.  Then  he  recog- 
nized the  possibility  that  the  patriotism  of  some 
reader  might  protest ;  perhaps  his  own  patriot- 
ism protested,  against  this  dark  picturing  of  the 
life  of  the  nation  ;  and  the  question  arose,  "  What 
advantage  then  hath  the  Jew  t "  His  patriotism 
urged  in  answer  the  great  mission  to  which  the 
Jewish  people  had  been  called,  that  of  being  the 
bearers  of  the  oracles  of  God.  Then  came  with 
fresh  sadness  the  thought  of  the  unbelief  of  his 
people  ;  how  unworthy  they  had  proved  of  the 
great  trust.     Then  he  remembered  that  even  in 


270  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

this  unbelief  they  had  been  the  servants  of  God, 
fulfilling  his  great  purpose,  manifesting  his  right- 
eousness. On  the  other  hand,  he  saw  that  this 
was  no  exculpation,  and  that  they  were  sinners 
none  the  less.  At  the  last,  all  that  could  be  said 
was  that,  in  spite  of  this  sin  of  unbelief,  they 
were  no  worse  than  other  men.  The  passage 
that  began,  "What  advantage  then  hath  the 
Jew.? "  and  went  on  to  the  proud  answer,  "  Much 
every  way,"  ends  with  the  humbler  question, 
"  What  then  }  are  we  in  worse  case  than  they }  " 
After  the  ''Much  every  way,"  Paul  had  gone  on 
to  say,  ^^  First  of  all,  that  they  were  intrusted 
with  the  oracles  of  God."  This,  it  would  seem, 
was  to  have  been  the  first  heading  of  a  series 
of  patriotic  claims ;  but  as  Paul  went  on  he  was 
overpowered  by  the  shame  of  the  unbelief  of  his 
people,  and  by  the  thoughts  that  were  suggested 
by  this.  He  never  got  farther  than  the  "  first  of 
all."  Instead  of  the  second  and  the  third  head- 
ings that  were  to  mark  off  the  various  aspects  of 
his  country's  glory,  came  the  pitiful  question, 
"  What  then  }  are  we  in  worse  case  than  they } " 
This  shadow  that  rested  over  the  larger  por- 
tion of  the  Jewish  people  was,  however,  soon  to 
pass  away.     When  the  service  to  which  they  had 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         2/ 1 

been  detailed  was  accomplished,  they  were  to  be 
taken  back  into  oneness  with  God.  "And  so," 
Paul  writes,  "  all  Israel  shall  be  saved."  ^ 

The  salvation  of  Israel  was  to  be  accomplished 
in  some  way  by  the  aid  of  the  Gentiles.  Paul 
believed  that  the  Jews  would  be  stirred  up  to 
jealousy  by  the  acceptance  of  the  Gentiles.^ 
Further,  it  does  not  appear  clearly  in  what  way 
the  fate  of  the  Gentiles  was  to  react  on  the 
Jews.  Possibly,  it  was  by  the  direct  power  of 
the  Gentile  church,  or  of  the  spirit  of  God  work- 
ing through  it.  The  complete  conversion  of  the 
Jews  was  not,  however,  to  occur  until  "  the  ful- 
ness of  the  Gentiles  be  come  in."^  First,  then, 
all  the  Gentile  world  was  to  be  converted  and 
saved.  After  that  the  entire  Jewish  world  was 
to  be  converted  and  saved.  All  this  was  to  hap- 
pen before  the  second  coming  of  Christ ;  and 
according  to  the  expectation  of  Paul  this  second 
coming  was  to  take  place  in  his  own  lifetime. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  would  appear  that 
Paul's  doctrine  of  election  is  something  much 
less  grim  and  awful  than  it  has  generally  been 
supposed,  and  indeed  less  so  than  some  of  his 

^  Romans  xi.  26.  ^  Romans  xi.  11. 

8  Romans  xi.  25. 


272  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

words  would  seem  to  indicate.  The  part  which 
one  and  another  was  to  play  in  the  great  con- 
summation had  been  assigned  them.  Some  had 
been  detailed  for  the  shameful  deed  of  rejecting, 
or  even  of  crucifying,  the  Christ  of  God.  They 
were  vessels  of  dishonor  and  of  wrath.  Others 
had  been  detailed  for  the  glad  and  honorable 
service  of  welcoming  the  Christ  and  building 
up  his  kingdom.  But  in  the  end  all  were  to  be 
united  in  one  glorious  body.  "The  fulness  of 
the  Gentiles"  was  to  be  brought  in,  and  ''all 
Israel  was  to  be  saved."  We  have  here  some- 
thing of  the  same  nature  as  the  secret  decrees 
of  Calvinism  ;  but  the  purpose  and  the  result 
of  these  decrees  are  something  very  different 
from  those  of  the  Calvinistic  system.  In  this 
latter  there  were  decrees  issuing  in  eternal  rep- 
robation. In  the  thought  of  Paul  they  were 
directions  for  secret  service,  in  which  the  sin- 
ner and  the  saint  were  together  working  out  the 
great  scheme  of  a  final  salvation,  in  which  both 
sinner  and  saint  were  to  have  their  part. 

From  all  this  Paul  would  seem  to  be  teaching 
the  doctrine  of  universal  salvation.  The  results 
that  have  been  reached  are,  however,  to  be  taken 
with    certain   qualifications.     Though   Paul  has 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  2/3 

been  regarded,  and  not  wholly  without  right,  as 
the  great  theologian  of  the  church,  yet  he  was  so 
intensely  practical  that  it  is  sometimes  difficult 
to  get  at  his  full  meaning.  He  seems  never  to 
have  dwelt  upon  theory  for  the  sake  of  theory, 
or  even  upon  theology  for  the  sake  of  theology. 
He  was  dealing  with  momentous  issues  that  con- 
cerned his  readers  and  himself.  He  thus  fails  to 
give  an  answer  to  questions  which  agitate  a  more 
reflective  age. 

Christ  was  to  appear ;  the  dead  in  Christ  were 
to  arise  ;  but  how  about  those  dead  who  were 
not  in  Christ  }  How  about  all  the  past  genera- 
tions of  the  people  of  Israel }  How  about  all 
pre-Christian  generations  of  the  Gentile  world } 
Were  they  to  have  a  share  in  the  great  accom- 
plishment }  To  such  questions  Paul,  at  least  in 
his  letters  that  are  extant,  gives  no  answer. 
There  is  no  intimation  that  they  even  occurred 
to  him.  In  the  "  first  Epistle  of  Peter,"  we  read 
that  Christ  "  went  and  preached  unto  the  spirits 
in  prison."  ^  Paul  may  or  may  not  have  shared 
this  belief.  All  that  we  can  say  is,  that  we  have 
no  intimation  one  way  or  the  other. 

There  is  another  qualification  to  be  made  in 

1  I  Peter  iii.  19. 


2/4  ^^^  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

regard  to  the  apparent  universalism  of  Paul. 
He  speaks  not  infrequently  as  though  after  all 
the  result  were  not  so  sure  as  in  his  lofty  mo- 
ments of  enthusiastic  confidence  he  sometimes 
states  it.  He  even  expresses  a  fear  lest  he  who 
had  preached  to  others  should  himself  be  re- 
jected.i  In  the  second  Epistle  to  the  Thessalo- 
nians  we  have  a  terrible  picture  of  "  the  revela- 
tion of  the  Lord  Jesus  from  heaven  with  the 
angels  of  his  power  in  flaming  fire,  rendering 
vengeance  to  them  that  know  not  God,  and  to 
them  that  obey  not  the  gospel  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  :  who  shall  suffer  punishment,  even  eter- 
nal destruction  from  the  face  of  the  Lord  and 
from  the  glory  of  his  might."  ^  in  the  epistles 
that  are  unquestionably  Paul's  we  find  somewhat 
similar  expressions.  Perhaps  we  ought  not  to 
include  among  these  the  stern  utterances  in  the 
second  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
for  these  were  addressed  to  those  who  lived  un- 
der the  law.  In  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corin- 
thians, however,  he  exclaims  :  "  Know  ye  not 
that  the  unrighteous  shall  not  inherit  the  king- 
dom of  God  } "  ^     In  the  second  Epistle  to  the 

1  I  Corinthians  ix.  27.  2  2  Thessalonians  i.  7-9. 

8  1  Corinthians  vi.  9. ' 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  2/5 

■Corinthians,  he  writes  :  "  For  we  must  all  be 
made  manifest  before  the  judgement-seat  of 
Christ ;  that  each  one  may  receive  the  things 
done  in  the  body,  according  to  what  he  hath 
done,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad."  ^ 

We  find  thus  two  forms  of  speech  used  by 
Paul,  which  seem  incompatible.  There  is  the 
joyous  confidence  of  faith  that  the  fulness  of  the 
Gentiles  should  be  brought  in,  and  that  all  Israel 
should  be  saved.  So  far  as  the  Christians  were 
concerned,  he  based  his  confidence  upon  the  fact 
of  their  election  to  salvation.  He  cries  :  "  If 
God  is  for  us,  who  is  against  us  .?  .  .  .  Who  shall 
lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect  .'*... 
Who  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ? 
shall  tribulation,  or  anguish,  or  persecution,  or 
famine,  or  nakedness,  or  peril,  or  sword  }  .  .  . 
Nay,  in  all  these  things  we  are  more  than  con- 
querors through  him  that  loved  us.  For  I  am 
persuaded,  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels, 
nor  principalities,  nor  things  present,  nor  things 
to  come,  nor  powers,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor 
any  other  creature,  shall  be  able  to  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus 
our  Lord."  2     On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the 

1  2  Corinthians  v.  lo.  2  Romans  viii.  31-39. 


2/6  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

fears  and  the  warnings  that  have  been  referred 
to,  —  fears  lest  he  who  had  preached  to  others 
should  himself  be  rejected, — warnings  to  the 
very  elect  of  God  against  possible  sin  and  con- 
demnation. All  this  represents  a  form  of  thought 
and  feeling  which  is  summed  up  in  the  "  second 
Epistle  of  Peter"  in  the  injunction,  "Give  the 
more  diligence  to  make  your  calling  and  election 
sure."  1 

If  there  are  these  conflicting  forms  of  presen- 
tation in  regard  to  the  elect,  we  need  not  wonder 
that  the  future  of  men  in  general  is  also  repre- 
sented with  varying  lights  and  shadows.  In  the 
one  class  of  expressions  Paul  spoke  as  a  prophet 
to  whom  the  coming  glory  has  been  revealed.  In 
the  other  class  he  spoke  as  a  teacher,  warning 
as  well  as  encouraging,  yet  working  confidently 
towards  the  accomplishment  of  the  desired  re- 
sult. Or  perhaps  this  is  treating  the  whole  mat- 
ter too  artificially.  Why  may  we  not  assume 
that  Paul,  with  his  fiery  temperament,  was  a  man 
of  moods,  and  that  out  of  these  varying  moods 
he  spoke. 

His  positive  statement  is,  however,  that  Jew 
and  Gentile  should  alike  be  gathered  in  to  the 

1  2  Peter  i.  lo. 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         277 

fold  of  Christ.  His  warnings  and  his  anxieties 
do  not  contradict  this ;  they  only  make  the 
prophecy  less  certain.  When  this  result  was 
reached,  would  come  the  end. 

The  Great  Consummation. 

Upon  the  scenes  that  should  mark  the  close 
of  the  epic  of  history  Paul  does  not  dwell.  He 
now  and  then  simply  indicates  the  sublimity  of 
this  consummation.  To  the  Thessalonians  he 
writes  :  "  For  the  Lord  himself  shall  descend 
from  heaven,  with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the 
archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  God  :  and  the 
dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first :  then  we  that  are 
alive,  that  are  left,  shall  together  with  them  be 
caught  up  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the 
air :  and  so  shall  we  ever  be  with  the  Lord."  ^ 
Later,  to  the  Corinthians  he  wrote  :  **  We  shall 
not  all  sleep,  but  we  shall  all  be  changed,  in  a 
moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  at  the  last 
trump  :  for  the  trumpet  shall  sound,  and  the  dead 
shall  be  raised  incorruptible,  and  we  shall  be 
changed."  ^  Only  one  brief  hint  does  Paul  give 
of  the  "  new  heaven  "  and  the  "  new  earth  "  ^  of 

1  I  Thessalonians  iv.  16. 

2  I  Corinthians  xv.  51,  52.  ^  Revelation  xxi.  i. 


2/8  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

which  we  read  in  the  book  of  the  Revelation. 
To  the  Romans  he  wrote  :  "  For  we  know  that 
the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in 
pain  together  until  now."  ^  This  would  seem  to 
imply  that  Paul  held  the  belief,  common  to  the 
Jewish  teachers  of  his  time,  that  at  the  coming 
of  the  Messiah  the  earth  itself  should  be  re- 
newed.2 

In  all  this  Christ  had  been  the  great  accom- 
plisher.  All  things  had  been  put  under  him, 
that  he  might  fulfil  the  work  of  the  Messiah. 
**  But,"  says  Paul,  "  when  he  saith.  All  things  are 
put  in  subjection,  it  is  evident  that  he  is  excepted 
who  did  subject  all  things  unto  him.  And  when 
all  things  have  been  subjected  unto  him,  then 
shall  the  Son  also  himself  be  subjected  to  him 
that  did  subject  all  things  unto  him,  that  God 
may  be  all  in  all."^  It  would  seem  as  if  this 
single  verse  should  have  stood  in  the  way  of 
the  ascription  of  Deity  to  Jesus.  No  exalta- 
tion of  Jesus  short  of  the  Godhead  is  too  great 
for  Paul,  but  at  this  he  paused.  Later  ages  have 
been  carried  on  by  the  impulse  received  from 

1  Romans  viii.  22. 

2  Weber's  System  der  Paldstinischen  Theologie,  pp.  380  ff. 
*  I  Corinthians  xv.  27  f. 


PAUL'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.         279 

him,  when  they  have  passed  the  sacred  limits 
where  Paul  rested  ;  but  in  naming  Jesus  God 
they  contradict  his  teaching.  In  the  last  glimpse 
that  Paul  gives  us  of  the  glorified  Christ,  his 
special  work  has  been  accomplished.  His  re- 
gency is  at  an  end.  He  takes  his  place  with  the 
world  that  he  has  redeemed.  This  is  all  that  we 
see  of  the  great  consummation.  All  else  is  lost 
in  the  glory  of  the  God  who  is  "  all  in  all." 


CHAPTER  VI. 
PAUL'S   DOCTRINE   OF   SALVATION. 

We  have  thus  considered  Paul's  teaching  in 
regard  to  the  abolition  of  the  law  and  in  regard 
to  the  remission  of  sins.  We  have  glanced  at 
his  philosophy  of  history.  The  central  and  es- 
sential element  of  his  teaching  has,  however,  not 
yet  been  touched  upon  by  us.  This  central  and 
essential  element  is  his  doctrine  of  salvation.  The 
abolition  of  the  law  and  the  remission  of  the  sins 
that  had  been  committed  against  it  formed,  in 
the  thought  of  Paul,  only  the  introduction  to  the 
real  substance  of  the  work  of  Christ.  They  were 
the  negative  aspect  of  this  work.  Paul's  doc- 
trine of  salvation  presents  what  was,  in  his  view, 
the  positive  aspect  of  the  work  of  Christ.  How 
completely  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  by  the 
death  of  Christ  belonged  to  the  negative  and 
preparatory  part  of  his  work  may  be  illustrated 
by  a  remark  by  Professor  Pfleiderer  in  a  paper 
of  comparatively  early  date.  Professor  Pfleiderer 
said  :  "  Paul  refers  to  atonement  by  the  death  of 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE   OF  SALVATION.        28 1 

Christ  only  in  relation  to  Judaizers  ;  not  once  in 
regard  to  the  spiritual  life."  ^ 

With  the  abolition  of  the  law  and  the  remis- 
sion of  sins  the  old  epoch  closed  and  the  field 
was  left  open  to  the  new.  When  Paul  says,  "  Our 
old  man  was  crucified  with  him,"^  he  implies  the 
sweeping  away  by  the  death  of  Christ  of  old  as- 
sociations and  conditions.  The  former  man  was 
a  slave  to  the  law  and  was  tainted  with  sin  ;  the 
new  man  is  free  and  filled  with  the  spirit  of  God. 
It  is  the  constitution  of  this  new  man  which  we 
have  now  briefly  to  consider. 

I  wish  to  emphasize  the.  fact  that  under  this 
heading  is  included  the  positive  and  substantial 
teaching  of  Paul,  because  the  little  space  which 
is  here  given  to  the  discussion  of  this  miglit 
seem  to  imply  a  lack  of  appreciation  of  its  im- 
portance. The  special  object  of  this  book  has 
been,  however,  to  state  and  illustrate  what  I 
conceive  to  be  the  real  significance  of  Paul's 
teaching  in  regard  to  the  Jewish  "law  and  to  the 
atonement.  If  I  have  referred  to  other  aspects 
of  Paul's  teaching,  it  is  because  they  illustrate 
this  or  are  illustrated  by  it.      I  here  refer  to 

1  Zeitschrift  fiir  Wissenschaftliche  Theologie^  xv.  195. 

2  Romans  vi.  6. 


282  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

Paul's  doctrine  of  salvation  chiefly  to  indicate 
what  a  small  place  the  theory  of  the  atonement 
filled  in  his  general  scheme.  If  he  devoted  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians  to  it,  it  was  because  the 
Galatians  were  being  misled  by  false  teachers. 
In  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  the  various  ele- 
ments of  his  system  are  exhibited  in  their  due 
proportion.  The  atonement  that  was  accom- 
plished by  the  crucifixion  of  Christ  touched  the 
Christian  life  only  at  its  beginning,  except  that 
the  moral  influence  of  the  event  and  the  grate- 
ful love  which  was  called  out  by  it  were  perpet- 
ual factors  in  the  Christian's  experience. 

While  the  higher  life  of  the  new  dispensation 
is,  on  the  whole,  clearly  stated,  there  are  certain 
points  which  to  me  at  least  are  obscure,  and  in 
regard  to  which  I  fail  to  obtain  much  light  from 
those  from  whom  I  have  sought  it.  This  differ- 
ence in  the  clearness  of  the  statements  in  regard 
to  the  two  aspects  of  Paul's  teaching  is  not  un- 
natural. In  the  one  case  we  have  to  do  with 
logic  ;  in  the  other  with  insight.  When  an  argu- 
ment is  wrought  out  with  any  approach  to  logi- 
cal consistency,  it  ought  not  to  be  difficult  to 
reach  its  meaning.  In  what  I  have  called  an 
insight,  on  the  contrary,  the  elements  are  not 


PAUVS  DOCTRINE   OF  SALVATION.        283 

analyzed.  The  result  is  presented  as  a  whole, 
and  the  perfect  comprehension  of  it  depends 
upon  habits  and  conditions  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing, preconceived  notions,  and  half -conscious 
assumptions,  which  may  be  in  part  or  wholly 
unknown  to  us. 

One  of  the  questions  to  which  it  is  sometimes 
difficult  to  give  a  perfectly  satisfactory  answer  is 
that  in  regard  to  the  identification  of  the  Chris- 
tian with  his  Lord.  This  identification  is  con- 
tinually referred  to.  Paul  exclaims  :  "  I  live  ;  and 
yet  no  longer  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."^  The 
Christians  are  told  that  they  are  "  the  body  of 
Christ."  2  It  is,  indeed,  needless  to  multiply 
such  illustrations.  It  is  an  interesting  question 
whether  forms  of  speech  like  those  that  I  have 
cited  are  used  in  a  literal,  mystical  sense ;  or 
whether  they  are  used  figuratively.  According 
to  one  view,  when,  for  instance,  Paul  says  that 
it  is  Christ  that  liveth  in  him,  he  meant  that  he 
was  united  to  the  risen  Christ  in  a  mystical 
union,  so  that  his  own  separate  individuality  was 
lost,  and  it  was  no  more  he  that  lived  but  Christ 
that  lived  in  him.  If  the  other  interpretation  be 
adopted,  Paul  would  mean  that  he  had  submitted 

1  Galatians  ii.  20.  2  j  Corinthians  xii.  27. 


284  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

himself  so  thoroughly  to  the  influence  of  Jesus 
that  it  was  as  if  Jesus  lived  in  him.  I  do  not 
know  of  any  criterion  by  which  we  can  absolutely 
determine,  in  many  cases,  which  interpretation 
is  the  true  one. 

If  we  decide,  in  regard  to  any  of  these  cases, 
in  favor  of  the  mystical  interpretation,  another 
question  is  forced  upon  us  to  which  it  is  equally 
difficult  to  give  an  explicit  answer.  The  ques- 
tion is.  What  was,  in  the  thought  of  Paul,  the 
relation  between  the  indwelling  Christ  and  the 
indwelling  Spirit }  The  same  forms  of  speech 
are  used  in  regard  to  both  relations,  that  of  the 
soul  to  Christ  and  that  of  the  soul  to  the  divine 
Spirit.  This  similarity  of  usage  may  help  us  un- 
derstand how  it  happened  that  among  the  early 
Christians  the  view  was  more  or  less  prevalent 
that  the  Logos  and  the  Holy  Ghost  were  one 
and  the  same.  This  view  might  seem,  further, 
to  have  a  verbal  support  in  the  saying  of  Paul, 
"  Now  the  Lord  is  the  Spirit."  ^ 

In  the  book  of  Acts  there  is  evidently  a  differ- 
ence in  time  between  the  conversion  of  the  be- 
liever to  Christ  and  the  reception  by  him  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.    Perhaps,  however,  we  have  no  right 

1  2  Corinthians  iii.  17. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE   OF  SALVATION.        285 

to  let  this  fact  influence  our  judgment  of  the 
thought  of  Paul.  In  one  passage  Paul  at  least 
appears  to  make  a  distinction  between  the  two. 
"  Ye  are  not,"  he  says,  "  in  the  flesh,  but  in  the 
spirit,  if  so  be  that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in 
you.  But  if  any  man  hath  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ, 
he  is  none  of  his.  And  if  Christ  is  in  you,  the 
body  is  dead  because  of  sin  ;  but  the  spirit  is 
life  because  of  righteousness.  But  if  the  Spirit 
of  him  that  raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead  dwell- 
eth in  you,  he  that  raised  up  Christ  Jesus  from 
the  dead  shall  quicken  also  your  mortal  bodies 
through  his  Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  you."  ^  If  we 
could  fully  understand  this  passage  we  should 
thoroughly  comprehend  the  positive  doctrine  of 
Paul.  In  some  parts  of  it  the  two  elements 
of  the  higher  life  would  seem  to  be  the  same  ; 
in  others  they  would  seem  to  be  different.  If 
they  are  the  same,  how  can  we  avoid  the  ancient 
doctrine  just  referred  to  of  the  identity  of  the 
Logos  and  the  Holy  Ghost }  If  they  are  differ- 
ent, what  is  the  nature  of  the  difference  .-* 

Perhaps  the  difficulty  is  theoretical  rather  than 
practical.  Perhaps  we  may  regard  Paul's  doc- 
trine of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  furnishing  its  solu- 

1  Romans  viii.  9  ff. 


286  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

tion.  It  may  be  that  in  the  thought  of  Paul  it 
was  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  that  Christ 
and  his  followers  were  taken  out  of  their  sepa- 
rateness  and  made  one.  It  may  be  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  this  manner  formed  the  uniting  and 
inspiring  life  of  the  body  of  Christ. 

Whatever  difficulties  the  details  of  Paul's  sys- 
tem may  occasion,  there  is  no  doubt  in  regard 
to  the  general  substance  of  his  thought.  The 
work  of  Christ,  in  itself  and  in  connection  with 
the  work  of  the  Spirit  which  came  through  him, 
was  accomplished  in  two  ways,  or  consisted  of 
two  elements.  The  one,  in  the  lack  of  a  better 
term,  we  may  call  mystical;  the  other  we  may 
call  moral.  The  former  of  these  elements  was 
the  indwelling  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  be- 
liever ;  with  which,  if  we  take  the  expressions 
referred  to  above  in  the  literal  sense,  we  must 
associate  the  indwelling  Christ.  This  indwell- 
ing life  of  the  Spirit  worked  both  negatively  and 
positively.  Its  negative  work  had  to  do  with 
the  sinfulness  of  the  flesh  which  was  inherited 
from  Adam.  There  was,  through  Jesus,  intro- 
duced into  the  system  a  power  which  penetrated 
it  in  every  part,  which  met  and  contended  with 
and  expelled  the  virus  of  sin.     This  is  in  part 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE   OF  SALVATION.        28/ 

what  Paul  meant  by  the  condemning  of  sin  in 
the  flesh.^  The  result  of  this  was  twofold.  It 
enabled  the  Christian  to  lead  a  holy  life.  Fur- 
ther, since  death  came  through  sin,  the  cleansing 
of  the  flesh  from  the  virus  of  sin  took  it  out 
from  the  dominion  of  death,  so  that  at  the  com- 
ing of  Christ  the  dead  in  Christ  should  be  raised, 
and  those  who  were  alive  should  become  changed 
without  going  through  the  form  of  death.  The 
positive  side  of  this  mystical  element  in  the 
work  of  Christ  was  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and,  if  we  accept  the  literal  interpreta- 
tion of  Paul's  words,  the  indwelling  of  Christ, 
as  an  actual  life.  We  recognize  two  forms  of 
the  positive  activity  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  These 
we  may  call  by  an  inaccurate  use  of  terms  the 
supernatural  and  the  natural ;  or  we  may  speak 
of  them,  more  truly,  as  the  special  and  the  uni- 
versal or  normal.  According  to  the  former, 
that  which  I  have  called  the  supernatural  or  the 
special,  the  Holy  Spirit  assumed  control  of  the 
finite  spirit  as  an  invading  force.  In  this  man- 
ner came  the  various  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  the 
gift  of  tongues  and  the  like.     Paul's  more  ordi- 

1  Romans    viii.   3.      "  He   made   sin    forfeit    its   dominion." 
Meyer,  a.  1. 


288  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

nary  manner  of  speech  refers,  however,  to  what 
I  have  called  the  natural,  universal,  or  normal 
form  of  the  Spirit's  working.  In  this  the  Divine 
Spirit  became  blended  with  the  human  spirit,  as 
the  life  of  a  tree  becomes  blended  with  that  of 
the  leaf  so  that  it  is  not  to  be  distinguished  from 
it.  Thus,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  we 
have  the  paradoxical  injunction,  "  Work  out  your 
own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling ;  for  it  is 
God  which  worketh  in  you  both  to  will  and  to 
work,  for  his  good  pleasure."  ^  Here  we  see  how 
the  divine  and  the  human  are  absolutely  blended 
in  the  process  so  that  even  the  very  willing  is  of 
God.  Elsewhere  we  are  told  that  "  the  fruit 
of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace,  longsuffering, 
kindness,  goodness,  faithfulness,  meekness,  tem- 
perance." 2  These  fruits  of  the  Spirit  are  of  no 
foreign  growth.  They  are  the  natural  products 
of  the  life  of  the  soul.  The  Divine  Spirit,  rein- 
forcing the  life  and  working  in  and  through  it, 
simply  brings  them  to  fairer  results  and  fuller 
proportions.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  have 
called  this  the  natural  operation  of  the  Spirit  in 
contrast  with  that  form  of  its  working  which 
breaks  in  upon  and  suspends  or  transforms  the 

1  Philippians  ii.  I2  f.  2  Galatians  v.  22  f. 


PAUVS  DOCTRINE   OF  SALVATION.        289 

ordinary  functions  of  the  spiritual  life.  I  have 
called  it  also  universal  and  normal,  because  it  be- 
longs to  no  special  crisis  of  the  world's  history, 
but  represents  the  normal  and  general  relation 
of  the  soul  to  God. 

The  other  element  in  the  work  of  Christ  I 
have  called  the  moral  element.  I  here  refer  to 
the  spiritual  activity  which  is  carried  on  in  the 
full  light  of  consciousness.  It  works  by  means 
of  influences  that  act  upon  the  soul  by  appeal- 
ing to  its  better  life,  placing  before  it  motives 
which  stimulate  and  ideals  which  guide  its  devel- 
opment. A  great,  perhaps  the  greatest,  factor 
in  this  open  and  recognized  influence  was  for 
Paul  the  personality  of  Christ.  The  epistles  of 
Paul  are  full  of  references  to  this.  "  Be  ye  imi- 
tators of  me,"  he  says  to  the  Corinthians,  "  even 
as  I  also  am  of  Christ."  ^  Elsewhere  he  says 
to  the  same  people  :  "  But  we  all,  with  unveiled 
face  reflecting  as  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord, 
are  transformed  into  the  same  image  from  glory 
to  glory,  even  as  from  the  Lord  the  Spirit."  ^ 
To  urge  the  personality  of  Christ  upon  his  fol- 
lowers and  to  realize  it  for  himself,  Paul  did  not 
need  to  dwell  much  upon  the  facts  of  Christ's 

1  I  Corinthians  xi.  i.  ^2  Corinthians  iii.  18. 


290  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

personal  history  upon  the  earth.  The  self-sacri- 
ficing love  of  Christ  was  for  him  summed  up  in 
the  contrast  between  the  heavenly  glory  which 
he  had  left  and  the  lowliness  of  the  life  of  ser- 
vice which  he  had  chosen.  This  life  found  its 
culmination  and  symbol  in  the  painful  and 
shameful  death  of  the  cross,  by  means  of  which 
the  end  that  had  been  the  impulse  to  this  deg- 
radation was  accomplished. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  difficulty  of 
determining,  in  all  cases,  what  phrases  of  Paul 
are  used  in  a  mystical  and  what  in  a  moral  sense. 
With  regard  to  many  of  Paul's  expressions,  how- 
ever, there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  are  used 
in  a  symbolical  or  moral  sense.  Thus  when 
he  speaks  of  being  buried  with  Christ  in  bap- 
tism and  rising  to  newness  of  life,^  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  phraseology  is  symbolical. 
This  passage,  it  should  be  noticed,  refers  to  no 
conception  of  Paul  differing  from  the  views 
elsewhere  expressed'  by  him  in  regard  to  the 
atonement.  The  two  forms  of  expression  sim- 
ply represent  opposite  aspects,  the  positive  and 
the  negative,  of  the  same  transaction. 

To  Paul,  Jesus  represented  the  highest  ideal 

1  Romans  vi.  4. 


PAUL'S  DOCTRINE   OF  SALVATION.         29 1 

of  life.  To  this  ideal  he  was  drawn  by  reverence 
and  love  and  gratitude.  He  felt  that  he  owed 
everything  to  him  ;  and  he  felt  that  Jesus  was 
worthy  of  the  offering  of  his  whole  life.  The 
thought  of  Jesus  represented  the  sphere  in 
which  he  lived  and  the  inspiration  and  goal  of 
his  living.  In  his  language,  indeed,  all  aglow 
as  it  was  with  the  fervor  of  his  spirit,  it  is  diffi- 
cult sometimes  to  distinguish  whether  the  per- 
son of  Christ  or  the  teaching  of  Christ  is  re- 
ferred to.  To  Paul  we  may  imagine  there  was 
little  difference  between  the  two.  The  person 
and  the  work  of  Christ  were  so  fused  together 
that  they  were  one.  It  was  the  work  which 
manifested  the  person  and  served  as  its  instru- 
ment ;  and  the  person  was  revealed  only  in  and 
through  the  work.  As  for  Paul  himself,  he  had 
no  life  apart  from  that  which  he  led  in  and 
through  and  for  his  Lord. 

If  we  leave  out  of  the  account  the  relations 
that  we  have  been  considering,  Paul's  doctrine 
of  liberty  would  be  wholly  misunderstood.  Apart 
from  these,  liberty  would  be  merely  license.  It 
is  to  be  noticed  that  Paul  nowhere  intimates  that 
the  law  had  been  annulled.  It  was  the  voice  of 
the  law  itself  which  condemned  the  Christian, 


292  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PA  UL. 

because  he  was  a  Christian,  to  that  outlawry 
which  was  to  him  liberty  and  a  new  life.  For 
those  who  were  not  Christians  it  made  its  old 
demands  and  uttered  its  old  thunders.  For  those 
who  were  Christians  it  stood  ready  to  lay  hold  of 
them  again  in  case  they  relapsed  from  their  alle- 
giance to  Christ.  The  two,  Christ  and  the  law, 
stood  before  men,  and  one  or  the  other  claimed 
their  allegiance.  They  could  not  serve  both. 
Paul  wrote  to  the  Galatians :  "Yea,  I  testify 
again  to  every  man  that  receiveth  circumcision, 
that  he  is  a  debtor  to  do  the  whole  law.  Ye  are 
severed  from  Christ,  ye  who  would  be  justified 
by  the  law."  ^  To  Paul's  thought  no  one  was 
made  free  of  the  law  through  Christ  who  did  not 
stand  to  Christ  in  such  an  intimate  relation  of 
faith  and  love  and  acceptance  that  he  shared 
with  him  the  legal  pollution  of  his  crucifixion.^ 
One  who  was  so  united  with  Christ  must  of  ne- 
cessity feel  the  power  of  his  personality,  and 
must  receive  those  spiritual  gifts  which  came 
through  Christ.     Thus  only  those  were  free  of 

1  Galatians  v.  3,  4. 

2  "  In  his  "  (Paul's)  "  view,  deadness  to  the  law,  the  result  of 
faith  in  Christ,  was  also  deadness  to  sin."  Toy's  Judaism  and 
Christianity,  p.  209. 


PAUVS  DOCTRINE   OF  SALVATION.        293 

the  law  who  were  taken  up  into  the  higher  life 
of  Christian  love  and  inspiration. 

This  higher  life  of  the  spirit  is  what  Paul  was 
aiming  at  in  all  his  writing  and  preaching.  How 
closely  he  had  this  at  heart  is  seen  from  those 
injunctions,  so  inspiring  and  tender,  so  full  of 
human  insight  and  of  moral  strength,  which  now 
and  then  interrupt  his  closer  thought,  and  which 
crown  the  close  of  every  epistle..  In  these  we 
learn  to  love  the  man,  as  in  his  strength  and 
courage  we  had  learned  to  admire  him. 


CONCLUSION. 

The  interpretation  which  I  have  presented  of 
Paul's  doctrine  of  the  atonement  appears  to  me 
to  be  so  clearly  taught  by  him  that  I  cannot  help 
believing  that-  it  will  become  at  some  time  the 
generally  accepted  view  of  his  teaching.  I  can- 
not hope  that  it  will,  to  any  very  great  extent, 
become  at  once  so  accepted.  The  associations 
with  the  phraseology  of  Paul  are  so  strong  that 
it  is  probable  that  they  will,  for  a  time,  hold  their 
own,  in  spite  of  the  distinctness  with  which  Paul 
says  something  which  these  associations  wholly 
misrepresent.  Still,  it  is  worth  while  to  ask  what 
will  be  the  effect  upon  religious  thought  and 
feeling  when  this  view  of  Paul's  teaching  shall 
become  accepted  ;  and  also  what  is  the  general 
interest  that  should  attach  itself  to  this  discus- 
sion. 

To  those  who  take  the  same  view  of  the  Jew- 
ish law  that  Paul  did,  that  is,  to  those  who  ac- 
cept it  as  the  supernaturally  given  ordinance  of 
God,  Paul's  reasoning  will  hold  in  the  same  sense 


CONCLUSION.  295 

that  it  had  for  him  and  his  followers.  They  will 
feel  that  they  are  freed  from  the  law  by  the  fact 
that  Jesus  bore  its  curse,  and  that  he  shed  his 
blood  for  the  remission  of  their  sins. 

For  those  who  do  not  have  this  belief  in  the 
divine  authority  of  the  Jewish  law,  or  who  have 
not  so  vivid  a  sense  of  this  authority,  the  cross 
of  Christ  will  still  remain  the  instrument  by 
which  Christianity  gained  possession  of  the 
world.  The  crucifixion  will  be  of  interest,  not 
merely  as  any  other  martyrdom,  but  because  it 
was  precisely  by  this  form  of  death  that  Christ 
won  the  victory  which  brought  his  gospel  to  the 
Gentile  world.  Thus  the  cross  will  still  remain 
the  symbol  of  victory  through  shame,  and  will 
still  be  seen  to  be  the  source  of  spiritual  life  to 
the  world.  It  will  thus  remain  the  sign  by  which 
the  victory  over  the  powers  of  evil  is  to  be 
accomplished. 

If  we  look  at  other  than  the  strictly  religious 
aspect  of  the  result,  we  shall  still  find  it  full  of 
interest.  It  presents  in  a  new  light  the  magnifi- 
cent figure  of  Paul.  Perhaps  we  may  feel  the 
power  of  his  genius  more  than  it  could  have 
been  felt  under  the  shadow  of  the  awful  and 
mysterious  doctrines  that  have  been  associated 


296  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

with  his  name.  Certainly  the  power  of  his  per- 
sonality will  be  felt  more  clearly.  The  two  parts 
of  his  life  will  be  seen  to  fit  together  as  they 
could  not  have  been  seen  to  do  before.  We  see 
in  Paul  a  man  of  fiery  emotions,  whose  emotions 
were  wholly  under  the  guidance  of  his  intellect. 
Perhaps  there  was  never  a  man  of  so  passionate 
a  nature  who  was  so  absolutely  controlled  by  his 
reason.  This  control  is  shown  not  merely  by  a 
life  dominated  by  an  idea.  Such  lives  are  not 
rare.  The  control  is  shown  by  the  sudden  and 
absolute  change  of  life  at  the  command  of  his 
reason,  which  first  demanded  one  form  of  life 
and  then  under  the  guidance  of  an  inflexible 
logic  demanded  another. 

There  was,  perhaps,  never  another  instance  of 
so  complete  a  change  as  Paul  underwent,  occur- 
ring as  it  did  in  the  case  of  Paul  without  foreign 
impulse.  The  inspiration  came,  indeed,  from 
Jesus  ;  but  the  form  which  its  working  took  was 
wholly  peculiar  to  Paul.  The  change  was  not 
merely  in  regard  to  outward  observances.  It  af- 
fected the  inmost  sources  and  methods  of  his 
life.  We  are  in  the  habit  of  looking  upon  the 
Jewish  law  chiefly  with  reference  to  its  ritual, 
using  this  word  in  its  widest   sense.     To  Paul 


CONCLUSION.  297 

and  to  Jesus  the  law  was  primarily  something 
very  different  from  this.  To  them  love  was  "  the 
fulfilment  of  the  law."  ^  They  regarded  the  law, 
therefore,  as  primarily  referring,  in  the  expres- 
sion of  Jesus,  to  love  to  God  and  man.^  In  the 
law  that,  according  to  the  thought  of  Paul,  was 
abolished  for  the  Christian  by  the  death  of 
Christ  was  included  the  spiritual  and  moral  as 
well  as  the  ceremonial  law.  Of  this  Paul's  lan- 
guage leaves  no  doubt.  He  says,  for  instance : 
"  What  then  }  shall  we  sin,  because  we  are  not 
under  law,  but  under  grace  .^"^  In  another 
place,  he  says  :  '*  For  ye,  brethren,  were  called 
for  freedom  ;  only  use  not  your  freedom  for  an 
occasion  for  the  flesh."  *  These  sayings  and 
others  which  might  be  quoted  make  it  perfectly 
clear  that  freedom  with  Paul  was  freedom  from 
every  positive  command.  Life  was  henceforth 
to  be  based  not  on  external  authority,  but  upon 
the  impulses  of  a  heart  transformed  by  the 
power  of  Jesus  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  With 
this  change  of  mental  attitude  the  entire  spirit 
of  Paul  seems  to  have  been  changed.  Before, 
he  had  been  the  narrow  and  hard  persecutor. 

1  Romans  xiii,  10.  2  Matthew  xxii.  37-39. 

3  Romans  vi.  15.  *  Galatians  v.  13. 


298  THE   GOSPEL    OF  PAUL. 

Now  all  the  beauty  of  his  nature  blossomed  in 
the  genial  light  of  the  new  truth.  He  becomes 
the  ideal  of  breadth  and  of  tender  sympathy.  It 
is  interesting  to  see  how  he  anticipates  what 
is  most  marked  in  our  modern  ethics.  When 
he  speaks  of  the  Christians  as  being  "  members 
one  of  another,"  ^  and  remember  that  with  him 
Christianity  was  to  embrace  the  world,  we  find 
an  anticipation  of  that  recognition  of  the  soli- 
darity of  society  which  is  becoming  more  and 
more  the  foundation  of  our  ethics  ;  while  the 
exclamation,  "If  any  will  not  work,  neither  let 
him  eat,"  2  which  anticipates  our  whole  idea  of 
charity,  sounds  so  much  like  Paul  that  lam  un- 
willing to  doubt  its  genuineness. 

The  expressions  which  to  many  have  made 
Paul  appear  hard  and  dogmatic  are  merely  ex- 
pressions of  the  largeness  of  his  nature.  In  the 
passage  which  has  suggested  the  title  of  this 
book,  Paul  exclaims,  "  But  though  we,  or  an 
angel  from  heaven,  should  preach  unto  you  any 
gospel  other  than  that  which  we  preached  unto 

1  This  expression  from  Ephesians  iv.  25,  simply  sums  up 
forms  of  speech  common  in  his  unquestioned  epistles.  Com- 
pare I  Corinthians  xii.  26,  et passim. 

2  2  Thessalonians  iii.  10. 


CONCLUSION.  299 

you,  let  him  be  anathema."  ^  What  could  seem 
more  narrow  and  bigoted  than  this  ?  When  we 
ask,  however,  what  was  the  gospel  of  which  Paul 
speaks,  the  nature  of  these  words  is  changed. 
The  whole  tenor  of  the  epistle  from  which  these 
words  are  taken  show  that  the  gospel  to  which 
he  refers  is  the  gospel  of  freedom.  It  was  a 
gospel  that  had  struck  off  the  chains  from  the 
human  spirit  ;  and  Paul  cries,  "  Though  we  or  an 
angel  from  heaven  should  seek  to  bind  again  the 
follower  of  Christ,  let  him  be  anathema."  What 
seems  an  outburst  of  dogmatism  is  a  protest 
against  dogmatism.  So  far  as  the  aspect  of  his 
gospel  to  which  reference  is  here  made  is  con- 
cerned, the  most  advanced  and  freest  thinker  of 
our  own  day  could  say  Amen. 

Another  illustration  of  Paul's  greatness  is 
found  in  his  attitude  toward  the  law  which  he 
discarded.  He  does  not  turn  against  it  with 
scorn  and  hate.  He  still  beheves  it  to  have 
been  God's  law.  He  would  not  have  passed  be- 
yond it  except  at  its  own  bidding.  Wholly  char- 
acteristic of  his  conservatism  in  the  midst  of  the 
radical  transformation  which  he  was  accomplish- 
ing is  the  phrase  which  has  been  so  often  quoted 
1  Galatians  i.  8. 


300  THE   GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

on  these  pages,  "I  through  the  law  died  unto 
the  law."i  Only  through  the  law  would  Paul 
have  been  willing  to  die  to  it. 

We  feel  the  greatness  of  Paul  all  the  more 
when  we  consider  the  work  which  he  accom- 
plished. It  was  he  who  gave  Christianity  to  the 
world.  We  owe  it  to  him  that  Christianity  did 
not  continue  as  a  Jewish  sect,  unless  indeed  it 
had  perished  as  such.  It  is  idle,  indeed,  to  say 
in  regard  to  the  course  of  history  what  might 
have  been  if  something  that  was  had  not  been. 
It  is  not  idle,  however,  to  say  that,  so  far  as  the 
reality  of  history  is  concerned,  the  world  owes 
Christianity  to  Paul.  When  we  think  what  Eu- 
rope and  America  would  have  been  and  would  be 
without  Christianity,  what  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual, what  the  social  order,  what  painting  and 
music  and  architecture  would  have  been  with- 
out it ;  we  can  faintly  realize  the  extent  of  the 
world's  indebtedness  to  Paul.  Surely  no  ques- 
tion of  history  could  be  more  interesting  or  im- 
portant than  the  one  that  we  have  been  consid- 
ering, namely,  how  this  movement  by  which 
Christianity  passed  from  the  condition  of  a  Jew- 
ish sect  to  that  of  a  world  religion  was  accom- 

1  Galatians  ii.  19. 


CONCLUSION.        ■  301 

plished.  It  is  a  question  which  is  as  interesting 
from  the  historical  as  from  the  theological  point 
of  view.  When  we  look  closely  at  the  matter, 
as  we  have  done,  we  find  it  even  more  interest- 
ing than  we  might  have  expected.  The  dialectic 
of  Paul,  by  which  the  law  was  the  agent  of  its 
own  overthrow,  amazes  us.  If  this  were  a  bit 
of  legal  strategy  we  should  admire  its  audacity. 
It  is  more  to  be  admired  when  we  see  in  it  the 
natural  working  of  an  earnest  mind  which,  by  its 
very  reverence  for  the  law,  was  emancipated  from 
the  law. 

The  transaction  gains  in  interest  when  we 
observe  how  little  change  the  teachings  of  Jesus 
undergo,  when,  by  this  dialectic  of  Paul,  they 
cease  to  be  provincial  and  become  universal. 
Paul's  legality  concerned  only  the  law.  The  law 
contained,  so  to  speak,  two  elements  which  were 
brought  to  bear  on  one  another  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  the  law  itself  became  dissolved  as  in  a 
vapor  and  passed  away.  The  shock  of  the  change 
left  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as  it  was  before.  Un- 
der the  interpretation  of  Paul's  teaching  that 
has  for  centuries  been  prevalent  in  the  church, 
this  was  not  the  case.  The  doctrine  which  made 
the   divine    forgiveness   impossible   without    an 


302  THE  GOSPEL  OF  PAUL. 

infinite  sacrifice  for  sin  obliged  the  Christian 
to  take  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  the  parable  of 
the  prodigal  son,  the  Lord's  prayer,  and  much 
of  Christ's  other  teaching,  with  many  qualifica- 
tions. The  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  could  not 
represent  the  return  of  the  sinner  to  God,  for 
the  prodigal  was  received  by  a  waiting  love 
which  demanded  no  vicarious  suffering.  When 
Paul  is  rightly  understood,  this  parable  and  the 
other  sayings  to  which  I  have  referred  may  be 
taken  in  the  simple  beauty  of  their  natural 
meaning. 

We  see,  also,  how  Paul's  teaching,  rightly 
understood,  leaves  undisturbed  our  confidence  in 
human  nature.  Paul  taught,  indeed,  the  deprav- 
ity of  the  flesh  derived  from  Adam's  sin.  "  They 
that  are  in  the  flesh,"  he  tells  us,  "  cannot  please 
God."  ^  This  doctrine  of  inherited  sin,  however, 
was  not  a  part  of  Paul's  original  thought.  He 
was  confronted  by  this  doctrine  of  the  Jewish 
teachers  as  he  was  confronted  by  the  barrier  of 
the  law.  As  his  dialectic  abolished  the  law,  so 
that  it  was  to  the  Christian  as  if  it  had  never 
been ;  so  his  doctrine  of  the  power  of  Christ  and 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  abolished  this  taint  of  inherited 

1  Romans  viii.  8. 


CONCLUSION.  303 

sin,  and  the  spirit  and  the  flesh  were  left  free  to 
become  the  temple  of  God.  Here,  again,  what 
seems  Paul's  narrowness  is  the  negation  of  nar- 
rowness. It  was  the  natural  method  by  which 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  was  set  free  from  local 
forms  of  thought,  so  that  it  could  appeal  to  the 
universal  consciousness  of  man. 

There  are  other  elements  of  Paul's  teaching, 
however,  which  introduce  new  elements,  if  not 
into  the  teaching  of  Christ  at  least  into  the  con- 
ception of  the  person  of  Christ.  Christ  was, 
indeed,  to  him  never  God.  The  church  in  the 
"deification  of  Christ  has  followed  the  momentum 
derived  from  Paul,  but  has  been  carried  by  it  far 
beyond  the  point  which  he  himself  had  reached. 
Though,  however,  Paul  did  not  exalt  Christ  to 
the  deity,  he  did  invest  him  with  a  superhuman 
and  preexistent  glory  by  which  he  stood  beneath 
God  alone.  There  is,  however,  a  vast  difference 
between  this  exaltation  of  Christ  and  a  trans- 
formation of  his  teaching  which  beclouds  his 
thought  and  is  out  of  harmony  with  man's  devel- 
oped sense  of  justice.  It  is  not  to  my  purpose 
to  discuss  the  question  how  far  this  exaltation 
of  Jesus  was  peculiar  to  Paul,  and  how  far  it 
was  shared  with  the  non-Pauline  church,  or  how 


304  THE    GOSPEL   OF  PAUL. 

far  the  doctrine  of  the  speedy  return  of  Christ 
to  judge  the  world  was  derived  from  the  words 
of  Jesus  rightly  or  wrongly  understood.  This 
exaltation  added  simply  a  framework  to  Chris- 
tianity which  did  not  affect  its  moral  aspect. 
What  I  wish  to  emphasize  in  these  closing 
words  is  the  manner  in  which  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  was,  by  the  dialectic  of  Paul,  transferred 
without  substantial  change  to  world-wide  influ- 
ence. 


INDEX 


CITATIONS   FROM   THE   BIBLE. 


LEVITICUS, 

iii.  II 48 

V.  5 49 

V.  II 50 

xiv.  7 39 

xvi.  21  f 39,  52 

xvii.  II 55 

XXI.  611 47 

xxii.  24  f 47 

DEUTERONOMY. 

V.  6flf 112 

xxi.  I  fF 57  f 

xxi.  22  { 114,  146 

NUMBERS. 

XV.  3 • 48 

xxviii.  2 47 

PSALMS. 

1 43ff 

ex.  4 258 

ISAIAH, 
liii.  sff 58  f 

JEREMIAH, 
xxi.  33  f 171 

MATTHEW. 

V.  ff 302 

vi.  9  £E 302 

XX..27... 245 

xxii.  37  ft 297 

xxvi.  27  f 230 

LUKE. 
XV.  II  ff 302 

JOHN, 
xix.  SI 114,  146 


ACTS. 

ix.  S ^55 

xxi.  26 151 

xvii.  30  f 185  f 

ROMANS. 


18  ff. 


i.  8  f . 


ii.  24  ff 2,  179 


V.  9 


ff. 


214 
.184 
.165 
.184 
.184 
.185 
.248 
•245 
.268 
.195 

•254 
.249 
.204 

V.  9 192 

V.  10 188,  192 

V.  12 239,  242 

V.  14 247 

V.  20 247,  249 

vi.  4 290 

vi.  6 281 

vi.  1 5 297 

vii.  iff 174 

vii.  5 250 

vii.  7ff 250 

vii.  12 246 

vii.  14 246 

vii.  14! 252 

vii.  22  £ 249 

vii.  24 252 

viii.  3 122,  287 

viii.  8 242,  248,  302 

viii.  9 236 

viii.  9ff 285 


3o6 


INDEX  OF  CITATIONS. 


vin.  22 278 

viii.  31  ff 275 

viii.  32 192 

viii.  36 122 

ix.  13 267 

ix.  17 267 

ix.  21 266 

xi.  8 267 

xi.  II 265,  271 

xi.  12 265 

xi.  IS 265 

xi.  19 265 

xi.  25 271 

xi.  26 271 

xi.  28 265 

xi.  30 265 

xiii.  10 297 

I.  CORINTHIANS. 

i-  23 153 

»•  9 213 

VI.  9 236,274 

viii.  6 261 

ix.  20 "■ 152,  229 

ix.  27 274 

xi.  1 289 

xi.  23  ff 222 

xii.  3 154 

xii.  27 283 

XV.  3 220 

XV.  12 20I 

XV.  13 201 

XV.  17 201  ff 

XV.  20 203  f 

XV.  22 ...204 

XV.  23 203 

XV.  27  f 278 

XV.  42 213 

XV.  so 213 

XV.  S^f 277 

XV.  ssff 164 

II.  CORINTHIANS. 

iii.  17 284 

iii.  18 289 

V.  10 275 

V.  21 176  ff 

viii.  9 261 

GALATIANS. 

i.  6 137 

i.  7 137 

i.  8 137.299 

i.  II  ff 221 

ii.  12  f 229 

ii.  19 95^.  "6,  138,  151, 196,  300 

ii.  19  f 1 19  ff,  147 

ii.  20 1548,  283 

ii.  2of 156 

iii-  i.-r '37 

iii.  8 196,  243,  255 


III.  II 19s 

iii.  13 80,96,  iiiff,  128,  131  ff,  138, 

144,  153.  191.  192,  195  f 

iii.  19 247 

iii.  23  f 2S3 

iii.  24 121  f 

iii.  26  ff 138 

iv.  4  £ 261 

iv.  IS 137 

IV.  19- • 137 

IV.  21  ff 263 

V.  2 152 

V.  3  f 292 

V.  4 137 

V.  7 137 

V.  13; 297 

V.  22  f 288 

vi.  7 138 

vi.  13 138 

EPHESIANS. 

i.7 172 

ii.  3 248 

ii.  iiff 167 

ii-  13 191 

iv.  25 298 

iv.  32 189,  192 

v.  2 131 

PHILIPPIANS. 
ii.  i2f 288 

COLOSSIANS. 

ii.  13  f 160 

ii.  14 17s.  198 

}i.  15 72 

li.  16 162 

I.  THESSALONIANS. 
iv.  16 277 

II.  THESSALONIANS. 

i-  7ff 274 

iii.  10 298 

HEBREWS. 

ii-  14 71 

V.  6 258 

vi.  iff 170 

vi.f 256 

vii.  13  f 260 

vii 170 

vii.  16 260 

ix.  13  ff 133  ff,  169  f,  190 

ix.  14 228 

ix.  15 162 

ix.  T8ff 173 

X.  i4ff 171 

x.  26 163 

xiii.  10  ff 148  ff,  171 

xiii.  13 156 


xiii.  15  f. 


1.2s 


i.  18  f. 
ii.  24  . 
ui.  19. 


INDEX  OF  CITATIONS. 


JAMES. 


PETER. 


II.  PETER. 


.176 

.218 

.228 
.228 
•273 

.276 


V.  12  . . 
vii.  14  . 
viij.  9  . 
viii.  14. 
xi.  8... 
xiii.  8.. 
xxi.  I., 
xxii.  15 


I.  JOHN. 
REVELATION. 


...i6s 


.232 
.232 
•237 
•237 
■234 
•232 
•277 
•  236 


(( tlHIVEBSITT  ) 


Poetry,  Comedy,  and  Duty. 

BY 

CHARLES  CARROLL  EVERETT,  D.  D. 

Professor  of  Theology  in  the  Divinity  School  of  Harvard  University. 

Crown  8vo,  pp.  315,  gilt  top,  1^1.50. 

/.  Poetry:  The  Imagination  ;  The  Philosophy  of  Poetry ; 
The  Poetic  Aspect  of  Nature ;  The  Tragic  Forces  in 
Life  and  Literature.  II.  Comedy  :  The  Philosophy  of 
the  Comic.  III.  The  Ultimate  Facts  of  Ethics  j  The 
New  Ethics.  IV.  Conclusion  :  Poetry^  Comedy^  and 
Duty.,  considered  in  their  relation  to  one  another. 

In  this  work  Poetry,  taken  as  representing  the 
aesthetic  side  of  life,  Comedy,  and  Duty  are  re- 
garded as  making  up  our  relation  to  the  environ- 
ment ideally  considered.  They  are  first  treated 
separately,  and  then  their  relation  to  one  another 
is  considered. 

An  abstract  discussion  of  the  aesthetic  and  ethical 
elements  in  the  mind  is  a  rare  contribution  to  ethical 
literature,  and  one  in  which  the  logical  element  is  so 
vigorous,  the  illustration  so  ample  and  apt,  and  the 
scope  so  broad,  as  is  the  case  with  this  volume,  is  a 
treasure-trove.  —  The  Atlantic  Monthly. 

It  is  necessary  only  to  notice  the  author's  clear  and 
precise  method  of  developing  his  subject,  the  absence 
of  all  controversy  from  his  manner,  the  extreme  con- 
scientiousness of  his  thinking,  which  are  distinguish- 
ing qualities  of  his  work.  .  .  »  Those  who  are  skilled 
to  think  and  write  like  this  are  few  in  our  day. —  The 
Nation  {New  York). 

A  book  so  sagely  optimistic  in  tone,  so  lofty  in  its 
conceptions,  so  stimulating  in  argument,  that  it  cannot 
fail  to  benefit  the  mind  with  which  it  comes  in  contact. 
—  The  Literary  World  {Boston). 

For  sale  by  all  Booksellers.  Sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of 
price  by  the  Publishers, 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY, 

4  Park  St.,  Boston;  ii  East  17TH  St.,  New  York. 


The  Science  of  Thought. 

BY 

CHARLES  CARROLL  EVERETT. 

Revised  Edition.     Pp.  430,  $1.50. 

It  is  the  aim  of  this  work  to  consider  thought 
as  a  reality,  to  approach  it  as  any  work  of  true 
science  approaches  its  material.  It  first  discusses 
the  relations  that  make  up  the  substance  of  actual 
thought.  It  then  analyzes  thought  into  its  ele- 
ments and  follows  it  into  its  fundamental  divi- 
sions. It  shows  the  method  of  each  of  these, 
the  kind  of  argument,  and  the  degree  of  cer- 
tainty of  which  it  admits.  Especially  does  it 
seek  to  present  in  the  ideas  of  the  reason  the 
principles  which  the  mind  accepts  as  its  final  test 
of  truth. 

"The  Science  of  Thought"  is  the  nearest  approach 
to  the  lines  along  which  life  moves.  It  is  the  logic 
which  my  interpretation  of  history  and  my  own  philos- 
ophy rest  upon,  and  is  therefore  the  logic  for  my 
classes.  —  H.  H.  Williams,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in 
the  University  of  North  Carolina. 

It  would  be  hard  to  name  any  other  book  America 
has  produced  which  would  so  deepen  the  reason  of  its 
serious  reader.  —  Rev.  Francis  Tiffany,  in  Christian 
Register. 

Published  by 

DeWOLFE,  FISKE  and   COMPANY, 
BOSTON. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
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